Transcendental magic, its doctrine and ritual

ELIPHAS LEVl'S
TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC

iics Hyatt.

TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC

ITS DOCTRINE AND RITUAL

BY

tiLIPHAS LfiVI

A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF

"DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE MAGIE "

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

BY

ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

AUTHOR OF "DEVIL WORSHIP IN FRANCE," ETC. ETC.

INCLUDING ALL THE ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS
AND A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR

LONDON
GEORGE REDWAY

1896

»&&

0*

BIOGRAPHICAL PEEFACE

ELIPHAS LEVI ZAHED is a pseudonym which was adopted in
his occult writings by Alphonse Louis Constant, and it is
said to be the Hebrew equivalent of that name. The
author of the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was
born in humble circumstances about the year 1810, being
the son of a shoemaker. Giving evidence of unusual
intelligence at an early age, the priest of his parish con-
ceived a kindly interest for the obscure boy, and got him
on the foundation of Saint Sulpice, where he was educated
without charge, and with a view to the priesthood. He
seems to have passed through the course of study at that
seminary in a way which did not disappoint the expecta-
tions raised concerning him. In addition to Greek and
Latin, he is believed to have acquired considerable knowledge
of Hebrew, though it would be an error to suppose that any
of his published works exhibit special linguistic attainments.
He entered on his clerical novitiate, took minor orders, and
in due course became a deacon, being thus bound by a vow
of perpetual celibacy. Shortly after this step, he was
suddenly expelled from Saint Sulpice for holding opinions
contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
The existing accounts of this expulsion are hazy, and in-
corporate unlikely elements, as, for example, that he was
sent by his ecclesiastical superiors to take duty in country
places, where he preached with great eloquence what, how-
ever, was doctrinally unsound ; but I believe that there is
n<r precedent for the preaching of deacons in the Latin
Church. Pending the appearance of the biography which
has been for some years promised in France, we have few
available materials for a life of the "Abbe"" Constant.
In any case, he was cast back upon the world, with the
limitations of priestly engagements, while the priestly career

Vi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

was closed to him — and what he did, or how he contrived
to support himself, is unknown. By the year 1839 he had
made some literary friendships, including that of Alphonse
Esquiros, the forgotten author of a fantastic romance, entitled
" The Magician";* and Esquiros introduced him to Ganneau,
a distracted prophet of the period, who had adopted the
dress of a woman, abode in a garret, and there preached a
species of political illuminism, which was apparently con-
cerned with the restoration of la vraie UgitimiU. He was,
in fact, a second incarnation of Louis XVII. — " come back
to earth for the fulfilment of a work of regeneration." t
Constant and Esquiros, who had visited him for the pur-
pose of scoffing, were carried away by his eloquence, and
became his disciples. Some element of socialism must have
combined with the illuminism of the visionary, and this ap-
pears to have borne fruit in the brain of Constant, taking
shape ultimately in a book or pamphlet, entitled " The Gospel
of Liberty," to which a transient importance was attached,
foolishly enough, by the imprisonment of the author for a
term of six months. There is some reason to suppose that
Esquiros had a hand in the production, and also in the
penalty. His incarceration over, Constant came forth un-
daunted, still cleaving to his prophet, and undertook a kind
of apostolic mission into the provinces, addressing the
country people, and suffering, as he himself tells us,
persecution from the ill-disposed. I But the prophet ceased

* M. Papus, a contemporary French occultist, in an extended study of the
"Doctrine of Eliphas Levi," asks scornfully: " Who now remembers any-
thing of Paul Augnez or Esquiros, journalists pretending to initiation, and
posing as professors of the occult sciences in the salons they frequented ? "
No doubt they are forgotten, but Eliphas Levi states, in the Histoire de la
Magie, that, by the publication of his romance of " The Magician," Esquiros
founded a new school of fantastic magic, and gives sufficient account of his
work to show that it was in parts excessively curious.

t A woman who was associated with his mission, was, in like manner, sup-
posed to have been Marie Antoinette. — See Histoire de la Magie, 1. 7., c. 5.

J A vicious story, which has received recently some publicity in Paris,
charges Constant with spreading a report of his death soon after his release
from prison, assuming another name, imposing upon the Bishop of Eveux,

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE Vll

to prophesy, presumably for want of an audience, and la
vraie Ugitimitd was not restored, so the disciple returned to
Paris, where, in spite of the pledge of his diaconate, he
effected a runaway match with Mdlle. Noe'iny, a beautiful
girl of sixteen. This lady bore him two children, who died
in tender years, and subsequently she deserted him. Her
husband is said to have tried all expedients to procure her
return,* but in vain, and she even further asserted her
position by obtaining a legal annulment of her marriage, on
the ground that the contracting parties were a minor and a
person bound to celibacy by an irrevocable vow. The lady,
it may be added, had other domestic adventures, ending in
a second marriage about the year 1872. Madame Constant
was not only very beautiful, but exceedingly talented, and
after her separation she became famous as a sculptor, ex-
hibiting at the Salon and elsewhere under the name of
Claude Vingmy. It is not impossible that she may be
still alive ; in the sense of her artistic genius, at least, she
is something more than a memory.

At what date Alphonse Louis Constant applied himself
to the study of the occult sciences is uncertain, like most
other epochs of his life. The statement on page 142 of
this translation, that in the year 1825 he entered on a
fateful path, which led him through suffering to knowledge,
must not be understood in the sense that his initiation took
place at that period, which was indeed early in boyhood.
It obviously refers to his enrolment among the scholars of
Saint Sulpice, which, in a sense, led to suffering, and per-
haps ultimately to science, as it certainly obtained him
education. The episode of the New Alliance — so Gannean
termed his system — connects with transcendentalism, at least

and obtaining a licence to preach and administer the sacraments in that
diocese, though he was not a priest. He is represented as drawing large
congregations to the cathedral by his preaching, but at length the judge
who had sentenced him unmasked the impostor, and the sacrilegious farce
thus terminated dramatically.

* Including Black Magic and pacts with Lucifer, according to the silly
calumnies of his enemies.

Viii BIOGEAPHICAL PREFACE

on the side of hallucination, and may have furnished the
required impulse to the mind of the disciple ; but in 1846
and 1847, certain pamphlets issued by Constant under the
auspices of the Libraire Societaire and the Libraire Phal-
anste'rienne shew that his inclinations were still towards
Socialism, tinctured by religious aspirations. The period
which intervened between his wife's desertion* and the
publication of the Dogme de la Haute Magie, in 1855, was
that, probably, which he devoted less or more to occult
study. In the interim he issued a large " Dictionary of
Christian Literature," which is still extant in the encyclo-
paedic series of the Abbe* Migne ; this work betrays no
leaning towards occult science, and, indeed, no acquaintance
therewith. What it does exhibit unmistakably is the in-
tellectual insincerity of the author, for he assumes therein
the mask of perfect orthodoxy, and that accent in matters of
religion which is characteristic of the voice of Rome. The
Dogme de la Haute Magie was succeeded in 1856 by its com-
panion volume the Hituel, both of which are here translated
for the first time into English. It was followed in rapid
succession by the Histoire de la Magie, 1860; La Clef des
Grands Mysteres, 1861 ; a second edition of the Dogme et
Rituel, to which a long and irrelevant introduction was
unfortunately prefixed, 1862; Fables ct Symloles, 1864;
Le Sorcier de Meudon, a beautiful pastoral idyll, impressed
with the cachet cabalistique ; and La Science des Esprits, 1865.
The two last works incorporate the substance of the
amphlets published in 1846 and 1847.

The precarious existence of Constant's younger days was
in one sense but faintly improved in his age. His books
did not command a large circulation, but they secured him
admirers and pupils, from whom he received remuneration

* I must not be understood as definitely attaching blame to Madame Con-
stant for the course she adopted. Her husband was approaching middle life
when he withdrew her— still a child— from her legal protectors, and the
runaway marriage which began by forswearing was, under the circumstances,
little better than a seduction thinly legalised, and it was afterwards not im-
properly dissolved.

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE ix

in return for personal or written courses of instruction. He
was commonly to be found chez lui in a species of magical
vestment, which may be pardoned in a French magus, and
his only available portrait — prefixed to this volume —
represents him in that guise. He outlived the Franco-
German war, and as he had exchanged Socialism for a sort
of transcendentalised Imperialism, his political faith must
have been as much tried by the events which followed the
siege of Paris as was his patriotic enthusiasm by the reverses
which culminated at Se"dan. His contradictory life closed in
1875 amidst the last offices of the church which had almost
expelled him from her bosom. He left many manuscripts
behind him, which are still in course of publication, and
innumerable letters to his pupils — Baron Spedalieri alone
possesses nine volumes — have been happily preserved in
most cases, and are in some respects more valuable than
the formal treatises.

No modern expositor of occult science can bear any
comparison with Sliphas Levi, and among ancient exposi-
tors, though many stand higher in authority, all yield to
him in living interest, for he is actually the spirit of modern
thought forcing an answer for the times from the old
oracles. Hence there are greater names, but there is no
influence so great — no fascination in occult literature ex-
ceeds that of the French magus. The others are surrendered
to specialists and the typical serious students to whom all
dull and unreadable masterpieces are dedicated, directly or
not ; but he is read and appreciated, much as we read and
appreciate new and delightful verse which, through some
conceit of the poet, is put into the vesture of Chaucer.
Indeed, the writings of filiphas Levi stand, as regards the
grand old line of initiation, in relatively the same position as
the " Earthly Paradise " of Mr William Morris stands to
the " Canterbury Tales." There is the recurrence to the
old conceptions, and there is the assumption of the old
drapery, but there is in each case the new spirit. The
" incommunicable axiom " and the " great arcanum," Azoth,

X BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

Inri, and Tetragrammaton, which are the vestures of the
occult philosopher, are like the " cloth of Bruges and hogs-
heads of Guienne, Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery "
of the poet. In both cases it is the year 1850 ct seq., in a
mask of high fantasy. Moreover, " the idle singer of an
empty day " is paralleled fairly enough by " the poor and
obscure scholar who has recovered the lever of Archimedes."
The comparison is intentionally grotesque, but it obtains
notwithstanding, and even admits of development, for as
Mr Morris in a sense voided the raison d'etre of his poetry,
and, in express contradiction to his own mournful question,
has endeavoured to " set the crooked straight " by betaking
himself to Socialism, so filiphas LeVi surrendered the rod
of miracles and voided his Doctrine of Magic by devising
a one-sided and insincere concordat with orthodox religion,
and expiring in the arms of " my venerable masters in
theology," the descendants, and decadent at that, of the
" imbecile theologians of the middle ages." But the one is,
as the other was, a man of sufficient ability to make a
paradoxical defence of a position which remains untenable.
Students of ICliphas LeVi will be acquainted with the
qualifications and stealthy retractations by which the some-
what uncompromising position of initiated superiority in
the " Doctrine and Eitual," had its real significance read
out of it by the later works of the magus. I have dealt
with this point exhaustively in another place,* and there is
no call to pass over the same ground a second time. I
propose rather to indicate as briefly as possible some new
considerations which will help us to understand why there
were grave discrepancies between the " Doctrine and Ritual
of Transcendent Magic" and the volumes which followed
these. In the first place, the earlier books were written
more expressly from the standpoint of initiation, and in the
language thereof ; they obviously contain much which it
would be mere folly to construe after a literal fashion, and

* See the Critical Essay prefixed to " The Mysteries of Magic : a Digest of
the Writings of Eliphas Levi." London : George Redway. 1886.

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE XI

what filiphas LeVi wrote at a later period is not so much
discrepant with his earlier instruction — though it is this
also — as the qualifications placed by a modern transcen-
dentalist on the technical exaggerations of the secret sciences.
For the proof we need travel no further than the introduc-
tion to " The Doctrine of Magic," and to the Hebrew manu-
script cited therein, as to the powers and privileges of the
magus. Here the literal interpretation would be insanity ;
these claims conceal a secret meaning, and are trickery in
their verbal sense. They are what filiphas LeVi himself
terms "hyperbolic," adding: "If the sage do not materially and
actually perform these things, he accomplishes others which
are much greater and more admirable" (p. 223). But this
consideration is not in itself sufficient to take account of the
issues that are involved ; it will not explain, for example,
why filiphas Levi, who consistently teaches in the " Doctrine
and Ritual " that the dogmas of so-called revealed religion
are nurse-tales for children, should subsequently have insisted
on their acceptation in the sense of the orthodox Church by
the grown men of science, and it becomes necessary here to
touch upon a matter which, by its nature, and obviously,
does not admit of complete elucidation.

The precise period of study which produced the " Doctrine
and Eitual of Transcendent Magic" as its first literary
result is not indicated with any certainty, as we have seen,
in the life of the author, nor do I regard filiphas LeVi as
constitutionally capable of profound or extensive book study.
Intensely suggestive, he is at the same time without much
evidence of depth ; splendid in generalisation, he is without
accuracy in detail, and it would be difficult to cite a worse
guide over mere matters of fact. His "History of Magic" is a
case in point ; as a philosophical survey it is admirable, and
there is nothing in occult literature to approach it for
literary excellence, but it swarms with historical inac-
curacies ; it is in all respects an accomplished and in no
way an erudite performance, nor do I think that the writer
much concerned himself with any real reading of the

b

Xll BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

authorities whom he cites. The French verb parcourir
represents his method of study, and not the verb appro-
fondir. Let us take one typical case. There is no occult
writer whom he cites with more satisfaction, and towards
whom he exhibits more reverence, than William Postel, and
of all Postel's books there is none which he mentions so
often as the Clavis Absconditorum a Constitutione Mundi ;
yet he had read this minute treatise so carelessly that he
missed a vital point concerning it, and apparently died
unaware that the symbolic key prefixed to it was the work
of the editor and not the work of Postel. It does not
therefore seem unreasonable to affirm that had LeVi been
left to himself, he would not have got far in occult science,
because his Gallic vivacity would have been blunted too
quickly by the horrors of mere research ; but he did some-
how fall within a circle of initiation which curtailed the
necessity for such research, and put him in the right path,
making visits to the Bibliotheque Rationale and the Arsenal
of only subsidiary importance. This, therefore, constitutes
the importance of the " Doctrine and Eitual " ; disguised
indubitably, it is still the voice of initiation ; of what school
does not matter, for in this connection nothing can be
spoken plainly, and I can ask only the lenience of deferred
judgment from my readers for my honourable assurance
that I am not speaking idly. The grades of that initiation
had been only partly ascended by filiphas Levi when he
published the " Doctrine and Ritual," and its publication
closed the path of his progress : as he was expelled by Saint
Sulpice for the exercise of private judgment in matters of
doctrinal belief, so he was expelled by his occult chiefs for
the undue exercise of personal discretion in the matter
of the revelation of the mysteries. Now, these facts explain
in the first place the importance, as I have said, of the
" Doctrine and Eitual," because it represents a knowledge
which cannot be derived from books ; they explain, secondly,
the shortcomings of that work, because it is not the result
of a full knowledge ; why, thirdly, the later writings contain

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE xiii

no evidences of further knowledge ; and, lastly, I think that
they materially assist us to understand why there are retracta-
tions, qualifications, and subterfuges in the said later works.
Having gone too far, he naturally attempted to go back, and
just as he strove to patch up a species of modus vivendi with
the church of his childhood, so he endeavoured, by throw-
ing dust in the eyes of his readers, to make his peace with
that initiation, the first law of which he had indubitably
violated. In both cases, and quite naturally, he failed.

It remains for me to state what I feel personally to be
the chief limitation of LeVi, namely, that he was a tran-
scendentalist but not a mystic, and, indeed, he was scarcely
a transcendentalist in the accepted sense, for he was
fundamentally a materialist — a materialist, moreover, who
at times approached perilously towards atheism, as when he
states that God is a hypothesis which is "very probably
necessary " ; he was, moreover, a disbeliever in any real
communication with the world of spirits. He defines
mysticism as the shadow and the buffer of intellectual
light, and loses no opportunity to enlarge upon its false
illuminism, its excesses, and fatuities. There is, therefore,
no way from man to God in his system, while the sole
avenues of influx from God to man are sacramentally, and
in virtue merely of a tolerable hypothesis. Thus man must
remain in simple intellectualism if he would rest in reason ;
the sphere of material experience is that of his knowledge ;
and as to all beyond it, there are only the presumptions of
analogy. I submit that this is not the doctrine of occult
science, nor the summum "bonum of the greater initiation ;
that transcendental pneumatology is more by its own;
hypothesis than an alphabetical system argued kabbalis-
tically ; and that more than mere memories can on the same
assumption be evoked in the astral light. The hierarchic
order of the visible world has its complement in the invisible
hierarchy, which analogy leads us to discern, being at the
same time a process of our perception rather than a rigid
law governing the modes of manifestation in all things seen

XIV BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

and unseen ; initiation takes us to the bottom step of the
ladder of the invisible hierarchy and instructs us in the
principles of ascent, but the ascent rests personally with
ourselves; the voices of some who have preceded can be
heard above us, but they are of those who are still upon the
way, and they die as they rise into the silence, towards which
we also must ascend alone, where initiation can no longer
help us, unto that bourne from whence no traveller returns,
and the influxes are sacramental only to those who are below.
An annotated translation exceeded the scope of the present
undertaking, but there is much in the text which follows
that offers scope for detailed criticism, and there are points
also where further elucidation would be useful. One of the
most obvious defects, the result of mere carelessness or undue
haste in writing, is the promise to explain or to prove given
points later on, which are forgotten subsequently by the
author. Instances will be found on p. 65, concerning the
method of determining the appearance of unborn children by
means of the pentagram ; on p. 83, concerning the rules
for the recognition of sex in the astral body; on p. 9*7,
concerning the notary art ; on p. 100, concerning the magical
side of the Exercises of St Ignatius; on p. 123, concerning
the alleged sorcery of Grandier and Girard ; on p. 125, con-
cerning Schroepffer's secrets and formulas for evocation ; on
p. 134, concerning the occult iconography of Gaffarel. In
some cases the promised elucidations appear in other places
than those indicated, but they are mostly wanting altogether.
There are other perplexities with which the reader must deal
according to his judgment. The explanation of the quad-
rature of the circle on p. 37 is a childish folly ; the illus-
tration of perpetual motion on p. 55 involves a mechanical
absurdity ; the doctrine of the perpetuation of the same
physiognomies from generation to generation is not less
absurd in heredity ; the cause assigned to cholera and other
ravaging epidemics, more especially the reference to bacteria,
seems equally outrageous in physics. There is one other
matter to which attention should be directed ; the Hebrew

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE XV

quotations in the original — and the observation applies
generally to all the works of Le'vi — swarm with typo-
graphical and other errors, some of which it is impossible to
correct, as, for example, the passage cited from Eabbi
Abraham on p. 266. So also the Greek conjuration, pp. 277
and 278, is simply untranslatable as it stands, and the
version given is not only highly conjectural, but omits an
entire passage owing to insuperable difficulties. Lastly, after
careful consideration, I have judged it the wiser course to
leave out the preliminary essay which was prefixed to the
second edition of the " Doctrine and Ritual " ; its prophetic
utterances upon the mission of Napoleon III. have been
stultified by subsequent events ; it is devoid of any con-
nection with the work which it precedes, and, representing
as it does the later views of Levi, it would be a source of
confusion to the reader. The present translation represents,
therefore, the first edition of the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute
Magie, omitting nothing but a few unimportant citations
from old French grimoires in an unnecessary appendix at
the end. The portrait of Le'vi is from a carte-de-visite in
the possession of Mr Edward Maitland, and was issued
with his " Life of Anna Kingsford," a few months ago.

LONDON, September 1896.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PACK

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE ...... v

EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES CONTAINED IN THIS WORK . xxi

THE DOCTEINE OF TEANSCENDENT MAGIC

INTRODUCTION ........ 3

CHAPTER I. THE CANDIDATE. Unity of the Doctrine— Qualifications

necessary for the Adept ...... 27

CHAPTER II. THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE. Foundations of the Doc-
trine— The Two Principles — Agent and Patient . . .37

CHAPTER III. THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON. Universal Theology of

the Triad— The Macrocosm ..... 44

CHAPTER IV. THE TETRAGRAM. Magical Virtue of the Tetrad-
Analogies and Adaptations — Elementary Spirits of the Kabbalah . 51

CHAPTER V. THE PENTAGRAM. The Microcosm and the sign thereof

— Power over Elements and Spirits . . . .60

CHAPTER VI. MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM. Action of the Will — Impulse

and Resistance — Sexual love — The Plenum and the Void . . 67

CHAPTER VII. THE FIERY SWORD. The Sanctum Regnum — The
seven Angels and seven Genii of the Planets— Universal Virtue of
the Septenary ....... 75

CHAPTER VIII. REALISATION. Analogical reproduction of Forces —

Incarnation of Ideas — Parallelism — Necessary Antagonism . 79

CHAPTER IX. INITIATION. The Magical Lamp, Mantle, and Staff —
Prophecy and Intuition — Security and stability of the Initiate in
the midst of dangers — Exercise of Magical Power . . .86

CHAPTER X. THE KABBALAH. The Sephiroth— The Semhamphoras—
The Paths and Gates— Bereschith and Mercavah— Gematria and
Temurah ........ 89

xvii

XV1U TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAQB

CHAPTER XI. THE MAGIC CHAIN. Magnetic Currents— Secrets of

great successes — Talking Tables — Fluidic Manifestations . . 97

CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT WORK. Hermetic Magic — Doctrines of
Hermes — The Minerva of the World — The grand and unique
Athanor— The Hanged Man . . . . .106

CHAPTER XIII. NECROMANCY. Revelations from the other World-
Secrets of Death and of Life— Evocations . . . .111

CHAPTER XIV. TRANSMUTATIONS. Lycanthropy— Mutual posses-
sions, or embryonic state of souls— The Wand of Circe— The Elixir
ofCagliostro ... . . . . .120

CHAPTER XV. BLACK MAGIC. Demonomania — Obsessions— Urban

Grandier— Girard— The work of M. Eudes de Mirville . . 126

^CHAPTER XVI. BEWITCHMENTS. Dangerous forces — Power of life and

death— Facts and Principles— Remedies— Practice of Paracelsus . 128

CHAPTER XVII. ASTROLOGY. Knowledge of Men by the Signs of their
Nativity — Phrenology — Chiromancy — Metoposcopy— Planets and
Stars — Climacteric years — Predictions by means of Astral Revolu-
tions ........ 137

CHAPTER XVIII. CHARMS AND PHILTRES. Venomous Magic —
Powders and Pacts of Sorcerers— The Jettatura at Naples— The
Evil Eye— Superstitions— Talismans . . . .144

CHAPTER XIX. THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS — ELAGABALUS.

What this Stone is — Why it is a Stone — Singular Analogies . 152

CHAPTER XX. THE UNIVERSAL MEDICINE. Extension of Life by

means of Potable Gold— Resurrection— Abolition of Pain . .157

CHAPTER XXI. DIVINATION. Dreams — Somnambulism — Presenti-
ments— Second Sight — Divinatory Instruments — Alliette and his
discoveries concerning the Tarot . . , . .160

CHAPTER XXII. SUMMARY AND GENERAL KEY OF THE FOUR SECRET
SCIENCES. The Kabbalah — Magic — Alchemy — Magnetism or
Occult Medicine . . 165

TABLE OF CONTENTS XIX

THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC.

PAOK

INTRODUCTION ........ 175

CHAPTER I. PREPARATIONS. Dispositions and Principles of Magical

Operation— Personal Preparations of the Operator . . 191

CHAPTER II. MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM. Alternative use of Forces-
Oppositions necessary in the Practice — Simultaneous attack and
resistance— The Sword and Trowel of the Builders of the Temple . 200

CHAPTER III. THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES. Use of the Triad in
Conjurations and Magical Sacrifices — Triangle of evocations and
Pantacles — Triangular Combinations — The Magical Trident of
Paracelsus ........ 206

CHAPTER IV. THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR. Occult Elements
and their Use — Manner of overcoming and subjecting Elementary
Spirits and Maleficent Genii . . . . .214

CHAPTER V. THE BLAZING PENTAGRAM. Use and Consecration of the

Pentagram ........ 224

CHAPTER VI. THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR. Application of Will to
the Great Agent — The Natural Medium and the Extra-natural
Mediator ........ 229

CHAPTER VII. THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS. Ceremonies, Vest-
ments, and Perfumes proper to the seven days of the week— Com-
position of the Seven Talismans and Consecration of Magical In-
struments ........ 234

CHAPTER VIII. A WARNING TO THE IMPRUDENT. Precautions neces-
sary for the accomplishment of the Great Works of Science . 248

CHAPTER IX. THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES. Its end and intention 251

CHAPTER X. THE KEY OF OCCULTISM. Use of Pantacles— Their
ancient and modern mysteries— Key of Biblical obscurities— Ezekiel
and St John ....... 256

CHAPTER XL THE TRIPLE CHAIN. Methods of its formation . 260

CHAPTER XII. THE GREAT WORK. Its Processes and Secrets— Ray-
mond Lully and Nicholas Flamel . . . . .264

CHAPTER XIII. NECROMANCY. Ceremonial for the Resurrection of

the Dead and for Necromancy ..... 270

CHAPTER XIV. TRANSMUTATIONS. Methods for changing the nature
of things— The Ring of Gyges— Words which accomplish Trans-
mutations . . 281

XX TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAQK

CHAPTER XV. THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS. Rites and special
evocations of the Sabbath — The Goat of Mendes and its worship
— Aberrations of Catherine de Medecis and Gilles de Laval, Lord of
Retz 288

CHAPTER XVI. WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS. Ceremonial for the same

— Mode of defence against them ..... 306

CHAPTER XVII. THE WRITING OF THE STARS. Divination by Stars
— Planisphere of Gaffarel — How the Destinies of Men and Empires
may be read in Heaven ...... 313

CHAPTER XVIII. PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM. Composition of Philtres

— How to influence Destinies — Remedies and Preventives . . 326

CHAPTER XIX. THE MASTERY OF THE SUN. Use of the Philosophical

Stone — How it must be preserved, disintegrated, and recomposed 335

CHAPTER XX. THE THAUMATURGE. Therapeutics — Warm and cold
Insufflations — Passes with and without contact — Imposition of
hands — Diverse virtues of saliva — Oil and Wine — Incubation and
Massage ........ 339

CHAPTER XXI. THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS. Ceremonial for
Divinatory Operations — The Clavicle of Trithemius — Probable
future of Europe and of the world ..... 346

CHAPTER XXII. THE BOOK OF HERMES. After what manner all
science is contained in the occult work of Hermes — Antiquity of
this book— Labours of Court de Gebelin and of Etteilla— The
Theraphim of the Hebrews according to GafFarel — The Key of
William Postel— A book of Saint Martin— The true shape of the
Ark of the Covenant — Italian and German Tarots — Chinese
Tarots — A German Medal of the sixteenth century — Universal
Key of the Tarot — Its application to the Symbols of the Apocalypse
— The seven seals of the Christian Kabbalah— Conclusion of the
entire work . 355

SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL.

THE NUCTEMERON OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA .... 387
THE NUCTEMERON ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS . . .395

INDEX . 401

EXPLANATION OF THE FIGUEES CONTAINED
IN THIS WORK.

MM

FIGURE I. The Great Symbol of Solomon . . . . .2

The Double Triangle of Solomon, represented by the two Ancients
of the Kabbalah ; the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus ; the
God of Light and the God of Reflections ; mercy and vengeance ;
the white Jehovah and the black Jehovah.

FIGURE II. Sacerdotal Esotericism making the sign of Excommunication 26

A sacerdotal hand making the sign of esotericism and projecting
the figure of the demon in its shadow. Above are the Ace of
Deniers, as found in the Chinese Tarot, and two superposed triangles,
one white and one black. It is a new allegory explaining the same
mysteries ; it is the origin of good and evil ; it is the creation of the
demon by mystery.

FIGURE III. The Triangle of Solomon . . . . .40

FIGURE IV. The Four Great Kabbalistic Names . . . .54

FIGURE V. The Pentagram of Faust . . . . .60

FIGURE VI. The Tetragram of the Zohar . . . . .91

FIGURE VII. Addha-Nari, grand Indian Pantacle . . .151

This pantheistic image represents Religion or Truth, terrible for
the profane and gentle for initiates. It has more than one analogy
with the Cherub of Ezekiel. The human figure is placed between
a bridled bull and a tiger, thus forming the triangle of Kether,
Geburah, and Gedulah, or Chesed. In the Indian symbol, the four
magical signs of the Tarot are found in the four hands of Addha-
Nari — on the side of the initiate and of mercy are the sceptre and
the cup ; on the side of the profane, represented by the tiger, are the
sword and the circle, which latter may become either the ring of a
chain or an iron collar. On the side of the initiate, the goddess is
clothed only with the skin of the tiger ; on that of the tiger itself
she wears a long star-spangled robe, and even her hair is veiled. A
fountain of milk springs from her forehead, falls on the side of the
initiate, and about Addha-Nari and the two animals it forms a magic
circle, enclosing them in an island which represents the world. The
goddess wears round her neck a magic chain, formed of iron links
on the side of the profane and of intelligent heads on that of the
initiate ; she bears on her forehead the figure of the lingam, and on
either side of her are three superposed lines which represent the
equilibrium of the triad, and recall the trigrams of Fo-Hi.

xxi

XX11 EXPLANATION OF THE FIGUKES

PAGE

FIGURE VIII. The Pantacles of Ezekiel and Pythagoras . . .166

The four-headed Cherubim of Ezekiel's prophecy, explained by the
double triangle of Solomon. Below is the wheel of Ezekiel, key of
all pantacles, and the pantacle of Pythagoras. The cherub of
Ezekiel is here represented as it is described by the prophet. Its
four heads are the tetrad of Mercavah ; its six wings are the senary
of Bereschith. The human figure in the middle represents reason ;
the eagle's head is faith ; the bull is resignation and toil ; the lion is
warfare and conquest. This symbol is analogous to that of the
Egyptian sphinx, but is more appropriate to the Kabbalah of the
Hebrews.

FIGUEE IX. The Sabbatic Goat. The Baphomet of Mendes . . 174

A pantheistic and magical figure of the Absolute. The torch
placed between the two horns represents the equilibrating intelli-
gence of the triad. The goat's head, which is synthetic, and unites
some characteristics of the dog, bull, and ass, represents the exclusive
responsibility of matter and the expiation of bodily sins in the
body. The hands are human, to exhibit the sanctity of labour ; they
make the sign of esotericism above and below, to impress mystery on
initiates, and they point at two lunar crescents, the upper being white
and the lower black, to explain the correspondences of good and evil,
mercy and justice. The lower part of the body is veiled, portraying
the mysteries of universal generation, which is expressed solely by
the symbol of the caduceus. The belly of the goat is scaled, and
should be coloured green ; the semi-circle above should be blue ; the
plumage, reaching to the breast, should be of various hues. The
goat has female breasts, and thus its only human characteristics are
those of maternity and toil, otherwise the signs of redemption. On
its forehead, between the horns and beneath the torch, is the sign
of the microcosm, or the pentagram with one beam in the ascendant,
symbol of human intelligence, which, placed thus below the torch,
makes the flame of the latter an image of divine revelation. This
Pantheos should be seated on a cube, and its footstool should be a
single ball, or a ball and a triangular stool. In our design we have
given the former only to avoid complicating the figure.

FIGURE X. The Triangle of Solomon . . . . .189

FIGURE XL The Trident of Paracelsus . . . . .212

This trident, symbol of the triad, is formed of three pyramidal
teeth superposed on a Greek or Latin tau. On one of its teeth is a
jod, which on one side pierces a crescent, and on the other a trans-
verse line, a figure which recalls hieroglyphically the zodiacal sign of
the Crab. On the opposite tooth is a composite sign recalling that
•of the Twins and that of the Lion. Between the claws of the Crab is
the sun, and the astronomical cross is seen in proximity to the lion.
On the middle tooth there is hieroglyphically depicted the figure of the
celestial serpent, with the sign of Jupiter for its head. By the side
of the Crab is the word OBITO, or Begone, Retire ; and by the side

EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES XX111

PAQK

of the Lion is the word IMO, Although, Persist. In the centre, and
near the symbolical serpent there is AP Do SKL, a word composed of
an abbreviation, of a word written kabbalistically and in the Hebrew
fashion, and, finally, of a complete ordinary word ; AP, which should
be read An, because these are the first two letters of the Greek
ARCHEUS ; Do, which should be read OD ; and, lastly, SEL, Salt.
These are the three prime substances, and the occult names of
Archeus and Od have the same significance as the Sulphur and
Mercury of the Philosophers. On the iron stem which serves as a
haft for the trident there is the triplicated letter P. P. P., a phallic
and lingamic hieroglyph, with the words VLI Dox FATO, which
must be read by taking the first letter for the number of the Penta-
gram in Roman figures, thus completing the phrase PENTAGRAM-
MATICA LIBERTATE Dox FATO, equivalent to the three letters of
Cagliostro — L. P. D. — Liberty, Power, Duty. On the one side,
absolute liberty ; on the other, necessity or invincible fatality ; in
the centre, REASON, the Kabbalistic Absolute, which constitutes
universal equilibrium. This admirable magical summary of Para-
celsus will serve as a key to the obscure works of the Kabbalist
Wronski, a remarkable man of learning who more than once allowed
himself to be carried away from his ABSOLUTE REASON by the
mysticism of his nation, and by pecuniary speculations unworthy of
so distinguished a thinker. We allow him at the same time the
honour and the glory of having discovered before us the secret of the
Trident of Paracelsus. Thus, Paracelsus represents the Passive
by the Crab, the Active by the Lion, Intelligence or equilibrating
Reason by Jupiter or the Man-King ruling the serpent ; then he
balances forces by giving the Passive the fecundation of the Active
represented by the Sun, and to the Active space and might to conquer
and enlighten under the symbol of the Cross. He says to the Passive :
Obey the impulse of the Active and advance with it by the very
equilibrium of resistance. To the Active he says : Resist the im-
mobility of obstacle ; persist and advance. Then he explains these
alternated forces by the great central triad — LIBERTY, NECESSITY,
REASON, — REASON in the centre, LIBERTY and NECESSITY in counter-
poise. There is the power of the Trident, there its haft and founda-
tion ; it is the universal law of nature ; it is the very essence of the
Word, realised and demonstrated by the triad of human life — the
Archeus, or mind ; the Od, or plastic mediator ; and the Salt Di-
visible matter. We have given separately the explanation of this
figure because it is of the highest importance, and gives the measure
of the greatest genius of the occult sciences. After this interpreta-
tion, it will be understood why, in the course of our work, we
invariably bow with the traditional veneration of true adepts before
the divine Paracelsus.

FIGURE XIII. The Pentagram . . . . . .228

FIGURE XIV. Magical Instruments— the Lamp, Rod, Sword, and Dagger 244

XXIV EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES

FAUK

FIGURE XV. The Key of Thoth . * . . . .281

FIGURE XVI. Goetic Circle of Black Evocations and Pacts . . 299

FIGURES XVII. and XVIII. Divers infernal characters taken from Agrippa,
Peter of Apono, a number of Grimoires, and the documents of the
trial of Urban Grandier ..... 301, 302

FIGURE XIX. Kabbalistic signs of Orion . . . . .316

FIGURE XX. Infernal Characters of the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac . 318

FIGURE XXI. Magic Squares of the Planetary Genii according to
Paracelsus ....... 361, 362

FIGURE XXII. Chariot of Hermes, seventh Key of the Tarot . . 365

FIGURE XXIII. The Ark of the Covenant . . . .371

FIGURE XXIV. Apocalyptic Key— The Seven Seals of St John . . 376

THE DOCTEINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

INTRODUCTION

BEHIND the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories
of ancient doctrines, behind the shadows and the strange
ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred
writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crum-
bling stones of the old temples, and on the blackened visage
of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or
marvellous paintings which interpret to the faithful of
India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the strange
emblems of our old books of alchemy, in the ceremonies
at reception practised by all mysterious societies, traces
are found of a doctrine which is everywhere the same, and
everywhere carefully concealed. Occult philosophy seems
to have been the nurse or god-mother of all intellectual
forces, the key of all divine obscurities, and the absolute
queen of society in those ages when it was reserved ex-
clusively for the education of priests and of kings. It
reigned in Persia with the magi, who at length perished, as
perish all masters of the world, because they abused their
power; it endowed India with the most wonderful tradi-
tions, and with an incredible wealth of poesy, grace, and
terror in its emblems ; it civilised Greece to the music of
the lyre of Orpheus ; it concealed the principles of all the
sciences and of all human intellectual progress in the bold
calculations of Pythagoras ; fable abounded in its miracles,
and history, attempting to appreciate this unknown power,
became confused with fable ; it shook or strengthened
empires by its oracles, caused tyrants to tremble on their
thrones, and governed all minds, either by curiosity or by
fear. For this science, said the crowd, there is nothing
impossible ; it commands the elements, knows the language
of the stars, and directs the planetary courses; when it

4 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

speaks, the moon falls blood-red from heaven ; the dead rise
in their graves and articulate ominous words as the night
wind blows through their skulls. Mistress of love or of
hate, the science can dispense paradise or hell at its
pleasure to human hearts ; it disposes of all forms, and
distributes beauty or ugliness ; with the rod of Circe it
alternately changes men into brutes and animals into men ;
it even disposes of life or death, and can confer wealth on
its adepts by the transmutation of metals and immortality
by its quintessence or elixir compounded of gold and light.
Such was magic from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to
Apollonius of Tyana, when positive Christianity, at length
victorious over the brilliant dreams and titanic aspirations
of the Alexandrian school, dared to launch its anathemas
publicly against this philosophy, and thus forced it to
become more occult and mysterious than ever. Moreover,
strange and alarming rumours began to circulate concerning
initiates or adepts ; these men were everywhere surrounded
by an ominous influence ; they killed or drove mad those
who allowed themselves to be carried away by their honeyed
eloquence or by the fame of their learning. The women
whom they loved became Stryges, their children vanished at
their nocturnal meetings, and men whispered shudderingly
and in secret of bloody orgies and abominable banquets.
Bones had been found in the crypts of ancient temples,
shrieks had been heard in the night, harvests withered and
herds sickened when the magician passed by. Diseases
which defied medical skill at times appeared in the world,
and always, it was said, beneath the envenomed glance of
the adepts. At length an universal cry of execration went
up against magic, the mere name became a crime, and the
common hatred was formulated in this sentence : " Magicians
to the flames!" as it was shouted some centuries earlier:
" To the lions with the Christians ! " Now the multitude
never conspires except against real powers ; it possesses not
the knowledge of what is true, but it has the instinct of
what is strong. It remained for the eighteenth century to

INTRODUCTION 5

deride both Christians and magic, while infatuated with the
homilies of Eousseau and the illusions of Cagliostro.

Science, notwithstanding, is at the basis of magic, as at
the foundation of Christianity there is love, and in the
Gospel symbols we see the Word incarnate adored in his
cradle by three magi, led thither by a star (the triad and
the sign of the microcosm), and receiving their gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, a second mysterious triplicity,
under which emblem the highest secrets of the Kabbalah
are allegorically contained. Christianity owes, therefore, no
hatred to magic, but^luiman^ ignorance has ever stood in fear
of the unknown. The science was driven into hiding to
escape the impassioned assaults of a blind love ; it clothed
itself with new hieroglyphics, dissimulated its labours, denied
its hopes. Then it was that the jargon of alchemy was
created, a permanent deception for the vulgar, a living
language only for the true disciple of Hermes.

Extraordinary fact ! Among the sacred books of the
Christians there are two works which the infallible Church
makes no claim to understand and has never attempted to
explain ; these are the prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apo-
calypse, two Kabbalistic Keys assuredly reserved in heaven
for the commentaries of magician Kings, books sealed with
seven seals for faithful believers, yet perfectly plain to an
initiated infidel of the occult sciences. There is also another
book, but, although it is popular in a sense and may be
found everywhere, this is of all most occult and unknown,
because it has the key of all others ; it is in public evidence
without being known to the public; no one dreams of seek-
ing it where it actually is, and elsewhere it is lost labour to
look for it. This book, possibly anterior to that of Enoch,
has never been translated, but is still preserved unmutilated
in primeval characters, on detached leaves, like the tablets
of the ancients. A distinguished scholar has revealed,
though no one has observed it, not indeed its secret, but its
antiquity and singular preservation ; another scholar, but of a
mind more fantastic than judicious, passed thirty years in the

6 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

study of this book, and has merely suspected its whole
importance. It is, in fact, a monumental and extraordinary
work, strong and simple as the architecture of the pyramids,
and consequently enduring like those — a book which is the
sum of all the sciences, which can resolve all problems by
its infinite combinations, which speaks by evoking thought,
is the inspirer and regulator of all possible conceptions, the
masterpiece perhaps of the human mind, assuredly one of
the finest things bequeathed to us by antiquity, an universal
key, the name of which has been explained and compre-
hended only by the learned William Postel, an unique text,
whereof the initial characters alone exalted the devout spirit
of Saint Martin into ecstasy, and might have restored reason
to the sublime and unfortunate Swedenborg. We shall
speak of this book later on, and its mathematical and precise
explanation will be the complement and crown of our
conscientious undertaking. The original alliance of Chris-
tianity and the science of the magi, once it is thoroughly
demonstrated, will be a discovery of no second-rate import-
ance, and we question not that the serious study of magic
and the Kabbalah will lead earnest minds to the reconcilia-
tion of science and dogma, of reason and faith, heretofore
regarded as impossible.

We have said that the Church, whose special office is the
custody of the Keys, does not pretend to possess those of
the Apocalypse or of Ezekiel. In the opinion of Christians
the scientific and magical clavicles of Solomon are lost ; yet,
at the same time, it is certain that, in the domain of in-
telligence ruled by the Word, nothing which has been
written can perish ; things which men cease to understand
simply cease to exist for them, at least in the order of the
Word, and they enter then into the domain of enigma and
mystery. Furthermore, the antipathy, and even open war,
of the official church against all that belongs to the realm
of magic, which is a kind of personal and emancipated
priesthood, is allied with necessary and even with inherent
causes in the social and hierarchic constitution of Christian

INTRODUCTION 7

sacerdotalism. The Church ignores magic — for she must
either ignore it or perish, as we shall prove later on ; yet
she does not the less recognise that her mysterious founder
was saluted in his cradle by the three magi — that is to
say, by the hieratic ambassadors of the three parts of the
known world and the three analogical worlds of occult
philosophy. In the school of Alexandria, magic and Chris-
tianity almost joined hands under the auspices of Ammonius
Saccas and of Plato ; the doctrine of Hermes is found almost
in its entirety in the writings attributed to Denis the Areo-
pagite; and Synesius sketched the plan of a treatise on
dreams, which was later on to be annotated by Cardan, and
composed hymns which might have served for the liturgy of
the Church of Swedenborg, could a church of the illuminated
possess a liturgy. With this period of fiery abstractions and
impassioned warfare of words there must also be connected
the philosophic reign of Julian, called the Apostate because
in his youth he made an unwilling profession of Christianity.
Everyone is aware that Julian was sufficiently wrongheaded
to be an unseasonable hero of Plutarch, and was, if one may
say so, the Don Quixote of Roman Chivalry ; but what most
people do not know is that Julian was one of the illu-
minated and an initiate of the first order ; that he believed
in the unity of God and in the universal doctrine of the
Trinity ; that, in a word, he regretted nothing of the old
world but its magnificent symbols and its exceedingly
gracious images. Julian was not a pagan ; he was a
Gnostic allured by the allegories of Greek polytheism, who
had the misfortune to find the name of Jesus Christ less
sonorous than that of Orpheus. The Emperor personally
paid for the academical tastes of the philosopher and
rhetorician, and after affording himself the spectacle and
satisfaction of expiring like Epaminondas with the periods
of Cato, he had in public opinion, already thoroughly Chris-
tianised, anathemas for his funeral oration and a scornful
epithet for his ultimate celebrity.

Let us skip the little men and small matters of the Bas-

8 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Empire, and pass on to the Middle Ages. . . . Stay, take
this book ! Glance at the seventh page, then seat yourself
on the mantle I am spreading, and let each of us cover our
eyes with one of its corners. . . . Your head swims, does it
not, and the earth seems to fly beneath your feet ? Hold
tightly, and do not look around. . . . The vertigo ceases ;
we are here. Stand up and open your eyes, but take care
before all things to make no Christian sign and to pronounce
no Christian words. We are in a landscape of Salvator
Rosa, a troubled wilderness which seems resting after a
storm ; there is no moon in the sky, but you can distinguish
little stars gleaming in the brushwood, and you can hear
about you the slow flight of great birds, who seem to whisper
strange oracles as they pass. Let us approach silently that
cross-road among the rocks. A harsh, funereal trumpet winds
suddenly, and black torches flare up on every side. A
tumultuous throng is surging round a vacant throne; all
look and wait. Suddenly they cast themselves on the
ground. A goat-headed prince bounds forward among
them ; he ascends the throne, turns, and by assuming a
stooping posture, presents to the assembly a human face,
which, carrying black torches, every one comes forward to
salute and to kiss. With a hoarse laugh he recovers
an upright position, and then distributes gold, secret
instructions, occult medicines, and poisons to his faith-
ful bondsmen. Meanwhile, fires are lighted of fern
and alder, piled over with human bones and the fat of
executed criminals. Druidesses crowned with wild parsley
and vervain immolate unbaptised children with golden knives
and prepare horrible love-feasts. Tables are spread, masked
men seat themselves by half-nude females, and a Baccha-
nalian orgie begins ; there is nothing missing but salt, the
symbol of wisdom and immortality. Wine flows in streams,
leaving stains like blood ; obscene talk and fond caresses
begin, and presently the whole assembly is drunk with wine,
with pleasure, with crime, and singing. They rise, a dis-
ordered throng, and hasten to form infernal dances. . . .

INTRODUCTION 9

Then come all legendary monsters, all phantoms of night-
mare ; enormous toads play inverted flutes and blow with
their paws on their flanks ; limping scarabaei mingle in the
dance ; crabs play the castanets ; crocodiles beat time on
their scales ; elephants and mammoths appear habited like
Cupids and foot it in the ring ; finally, the giddy circles break
up and scatter on all sides. . . . Every yelling dancer drags
away a dishevelled female. . . . Lamps and candles formed
of human fat go out smoking in the darkness. . . . Cries
are heard here and there, mingled with peals of laughter,
blasphemies, and rattlings of the throat. Come, rouse your-
self, do not make the sign of the cross ! See, I have brought
you home ; you are in your own bed, somewhat worn-out,
possibly a trifle shattered, by your night's journey and
dissipation ; but you have witnessed something of which
everyone talks without knowledge ; you have been initiated
into secrets no less terrible than the grotto of Triphonius ;
you have been present at the Sabbath. It remains for you
now to preserve your reason, to have a wholesome dread of
the law, and to keep at a respectful distance from the
Church and her faggots.

Would you care, as a change, to behold something less
fantastic, more real, and also more truly terrible ? You
shall assist at the execution of Jacques de Molay and his
accomplices or his brethren in martyrdom. . . . Do not,
however, be misled, confuse not the guilty and the innocent !
Did the Templars really adore Baphomet ? Did they offer
a shameful salutation to the buttocks of the goat of Mendes ?
What was actually this secret and potent association which
imperilled Church and State, and was thus destroyed un-
heard ? Judge nothing lightly ; they are guilty of a great
crime ; they have allowed the sanctuary of antique initiation
to be entered by the profane. By them for a second time
have the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil been gathered and shared, so that they might become
the masters of the world. The sentence which condemns
them has a higher and earlier origin than the tribunal of

1 0 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

pope or king : " On the day that thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die," said God Himself, as we see in the book of
Genesis.

What is taking place in the world, and why do priests
and potentates tremble ? What secret power threatens tiaras
and crowns ? A few madmen are roaming from land to
land, concealing, as they say, the philosophical stone under
their ragged vesture. They can change earth into gold, and
they are without food or lodging ! Their brows are encircled
by an aureole of glory and by a shadow of ignominy ! One
has discovered the universal science and goes vainly seeking
death to escape the agonies of his triumph — he is the
Majorcan Raymond Lully. Another heals imaginary
diseases by fantastic remedies, giving a formal denial in
advance to the proverb which enforces the futility of a
cautery on a wooden leg — he is the marvellous Paracelsus,
always drunk and always lucid, like the heroes of Rabelais.
Here is William Postel writing naively to the fathers of the
Council of Trent, informing them that he has discovered the
absolute doctrine, hidden from the foundation of the world,
and is longing to share it with them. The council does not
concern itself with the maniac, does not condescend to con-
demn him, and proceeds to examine the weighty questions
of efficacious grace and sufficing grace. He whom we see
perishing poor and abandoned is Cornelius Agrippa, less of
a magician than any, though the vulgar persist in regarding
him as a more potent sorcerer than all because he was some-
times a cynic and mystifier. What secret do these men bear
with them to their tomb ? Why are they wondered at
without being understood ? Why are they condemned un-
heard ? Why are they initiates of those terrific secret sciences
of which the Church and society are afraid ? Why are they
acquainted with things of which others know nothing ?
Why do they conceal what all men burn to know ? Why
are they invested with a dread and unknown power ? The
occult sciences ! Magic ! These words will reveal all and
give food for further thought ! De omni re scibili et quibus-
dam aliis.

INTRODUCTION 1 1

But what, as a fact, was this magic ? What was the
power of these men who were at once so proud and so
persecuted ? If they were really strong, why did they not
overcome their enemies ? But if they were weak and foolish,
why did people honour them by fearing them ? Does magic
exist ? Is there an occult knowledge which is truly a power,
which works wonders fit to be compared with the miracles
of authorised religions? To these two palmary questions
we make answer by an affirmation and a book. The book
shall justify the affirmation, and the affirmation is this.
Yes, there existed in the past, and there exists in the pre-
sent, a potent and real magic ; yes, all that legends have said
of it is true, but, in contrariety to what commonly happens,
popular exaggerations are, in this case, not only beside but
below the truth. There is indeed a formidable secret, the
revelation of which has once already transformed the world,
as testified in Egyptian religious tradition, symbolically
summarised by Moses at the beginning of Genesis. This
secret constitutes the fatal science of good and evil, and the
consequence of its revelation is death. Moses depicts it
under the figure of a tree which is in the centre of the
Terrestrial Paradise, is in proximity to the tree of life and
has a radical connection therewith ; at the foot of this tree is
the source of the four mysterious rivers ; it is guarded by the
sword of fire and by the four figures of the Biblical sphinx,
the Cherubim of Ezekiel. . . . Here I must pause, and I fear
already that I have said too much. Yes, there is one sole, uni-
versal, and imperishable dogma, strong as the supreme reason ;
simple, like all that is great; intelligible, like all that is
universally and absolutely true; and this dogma has been
the parent of all others. Yes, there is a science which
confers on man powers apparently superhuman ; I find them
enumerated as follows in a Hebrew manuscript of the
sixteenth century : —

" These are the powers and privileges of the man who
holds in his right hand the clavicles of Solomon, and in his
left the branch of the blossoming almond. « Aleph. — He

12 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

beholds God face to face, without dying, and converses
familiarly with the seven genii who command the entire
celestial army, n Beth. — He is above all afflictions and all
fears. J Ghimel. — He reigns with all heaven and is served
by all hell. 1 Daleth. — He disposes of his own health and
life and can equally influence that of others, n He. — He
can neither be surprised by misfortune, nor overwhelmed by
disasters, nor conquered by his enemies. 1 Vau. — He knows
the reason of the past, present, and future. ? Dzain. — He
possesses the secret of the resurrection of the dead and the
key of immortality.

" Such are the seven chief privileges, and those which
rank next are as follows : —

" n Cheth. — To find the philosophical stone. B Teth. — To
enjoy the universal medicine. s lod. — To be acquainted
with the laws of perpetual motion and in a position to
demonstrate the quadrature of the circle. 3 Caph. — To
change into gold not only all metals, but also the earth
itself, and even the refuse of the earth. ? Lamed. — To sub-
due the most ferocious animals and be able to pronounce the
words which paralyse and charm serpents. » Mem. — To
possess the Ars Notoria which gives the universal science.
3 Nun. — To speak learnedly on all subjects, without pre-
paration and without study.

" These, finally, are the seven least powers of the magus —

" D Samech. — To know at first sight the deep things of the
souls of men and the mysteries of the hearts of women.
V Gnain. — To force nature to make him free at his pleasure,
a Phe. — To foresee all future events which do not depend on
a superior free will, or on an undiscernible cause. V Tsade.
— To give at once and to all the most efficacious consolations
and the most wholesome counsels. P Copli. — To triumph over
adversities. "» Resch. — To conquer love and hate. W Schin. —
To have the secret of wealth, to be always its master and
never its slave. To know how to enjoy even poverty and never
become abject or miserable, n Tau. — Let us add to these
three septenaries that the wise man rules the elements, stills

INTRODUCTION 13

tempests, cures the diseased by his touch, and raises the
dead !

" At the same time, there are certain things which have
been sealed by Solomon with his triple seal. It is enough
that the initiates know, and as for others, whether they
deride, doubt, or believe, whether they threaten or fear,
what matters it to science or to us ? "

Such are actually the issues of occult philosophy, and we
are in a position to withstand an accusation of insanity or a
suspicion of imposture when we affirm that all these privi-
leges are real. To demonstrate this is the sole end of our
work on occult philosophy. The philosophical stone, the
universal medicine, the transmutation of metals, the quad-
rature of the circle, and the secret of perpetual motion, are
thus neither mystifications of science nor dreams of madness.
They are terms which must be understood in their veritable
sense ; they are expressions of the different applications of
one same secret, the several characteristics of one same
operation, which is defined in a more comprehensive
manner under the name of the great work. Furthermore,
there exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more
powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man,
who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and
alter the face of the world. This force was known to the
ancients ; it consists in an universal agent having equilibrium
for its supreme law, while its direction is concerned im-
mediately with the great arcanum of transcendent magic.
By the direction of this agent it is possible to change the
very order of the seasons ; to produce at night the pheno-
mena of day ; to correspond instantaneously between one
extremity of the earth and the other ; to see, like
Apollonius, what is taking place on the other side of the
world ; to heal or injure at a distance ; to give speech an
universal success and reverberation. This agent, which
barely manifests under the uncertain methods of Mesmer's
followers, is precisely that which the adepts of the middle
ages denominated the first matter of the great work. The

14 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Gnostics represented it as the fiery body of the Holy Spirit ;
it was the object of adoration in the secret rites of the
Sabbath and the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of
Baphomet or the Androgyne of Mendes. All this will be
proved.

Such are the secrets of occult philosophy, such is magic
in history ; let us now glance at it as it appears in its books
and its achievements, in its initiations and its rites. The
key of all magical allegories is found in the tablets we have
already mentioned, and these tablets we regard as the work
of Hermes. About this book, which may be called the
keystone of the whole edifice of occult science, are grouped
innumerable legends which are either its partial translation
or its commentary renewed endlessly under a thousand
different forms. Sometimes these ingenious fables combine
harmoniously into a great epic which characterises an epoch,
though how or why is not clear to the uninitiated. Thus, the
fabulous history of the Golden Fleece both resumes and
veils the Hermetic and magical doctrines of Orpheus, and if
we recur only to the mysterious poetry of Greece, it is be-
cause the sanctuaries of Egypt and India to some extent dis-
may us by their resources, and leave our choice embarrassed
in the midst of such abundant wealth. We are eager, more-
over, to reach the Thebaid at once, that dread synthesis of all
doctrine, past, present, and future, that, so to speak, infinite
fable, which comprehends, like the Deity of Orpheus, the two
extremities of the cycle of human life. Extraordinary fact !
The seven gates of Thebes, attacked and defended by seven
chiefs who have sworn upon the blood of victims, possess
the same significance as the seven seals of the sacred book
interpreted by seven genii, and assailed by a monster with
seven heads, after being opened by a living yet immolated
lamb, in the allegorical work of St John. The mysterious
origin of (Edipus, found suspended from the tree of Cytheron
like a bleeding fruit, recalls the symbols of Moses and the
narratives of Genesis. He makes war upon his father,
whom he slays without knowing — alarming prophecy of

INTRODUCTION 15

the blind emancipation of reason without science ; he then
meets with the sphinx — the sphinx, that symbol of symbols,
the eternal enigma of the vulgar, the granite pedestal of the
science of the sages, the voracious and silent monster whose
invariable form expresses the one dogma of the great uni-
versal mystery. How is the tetrad changed into the duad
and explained by the triad ? In more common but more
emblematic terms, what is that animal which in the morn-
ing has four feet, two at noon, and three in the evening ?
Philosophically speaking, how does the doctrine of elemen-
tary forces produce the dualism of Zoroaster, while it is
summed by the triad of Pythagoras and Plato ? What is
the ultimate reason of allegories and numbers, the final
message of all symbolisms ? QEdipus replies with a simple
and terrible word which destroys the sphinx and makes the
diviner King of Thebes ; the answer to the enigma is Man !
. . . Unfortunate ! He has seen too much, and yet with
insufficient clearness ; he must presently expiate his calami-
tous and imperfect clairvoyance by a voluntary blindness,
and then vanish in the midst of a storm, like all civilisations
which may at any time divine the answer to the riddle of
the sphinx without grasping its whole import and mystery.
Everything is symbolical and transcendental in this titanic
epic of human destinies. The two hostile brethren express
the second part of the grand mystery divinely completed by
the sacrifice of Antigone; then comes the last war; the
brethren slay one another, Capaneus is destroyed by the
lightning which he defies, Amphiaraiis is swallowed by the
earth, and all these are so many allegories which, by their
truth and their grandeur, astonish those who can penetrate
their triple hieratic sense. ^Eschylus, annotated by Bal-
lanche, gives only a weak notion concerning them, whatever
the primeval sublimities of the Greek poet or the beauty of
the French critic.

The secret book of antique initiation was not unknown to
Homer, who outlines its plan and chief figures on the shield
of Achilles, with minute precision. But the gracious fictions

16 THE DOCTEINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

of Homer replaced speedily in the popular memory the
simple and abstract truths of primeval revelation. Humanity
clung to the form and allowed the idea to be forgotten ;
signs lost power in their multiplication ; magic also at this
period became corrupted, and degenerated with the sorcerers
of Thessaly into the most profane enchantments. Thejjrime
of (Edipus brought forth its deadly fruits, and the science
of good and evil erected evil into a sacrilegious divinity.
Men, weary of the light, took refuge in the shadow of bodily
substance ; the dream of the void, which is filled by God,
soon appeared to be greater than God himself in their eyes,
and thus hell was created.

When, in the course of this work, we make use of the
consecrated terms God, Heaven, and Hell, let it be thoroughly
understood, once for all, that our meaning is as far removed
from that which the profane attach to them as initiation is
distant from vulgar thought. God, for us, is the AZOT of
the sages, the efficient and final principle of the great work.

Returning to the fable of (Edipus, the crime of the King
of Thebes was that he failed to understand the sphinx,
that he destroyed the scourge of Thebes without being pure
enough to complete the expiation in the name of his people.
The plague, in consequence, avenged speedily the death of
the monster, and the King of Thebes, forced to abdicate,
sacrificed himself to the terrible manes of the sphinx, more
alive and voracious than ever when it had passed from the
domain of form into that of idea. (Edipus divined what
was man and he put out his own eyes because he did not
see what was God. He divulged half of the great arcanum,
and, to save his people, it was necessary for him to bear
the remaining half of the terrible secret into exile and the
tomb.

After the colossal fable of (Edipus we find the gracious
poem of Psyche, which was certainly not invented by
Apuleius. The great magical arcanum reappears here under
the figure of a mysterious union between a god and a weak
mortal abandoned alone and naked on a rock. Psyche

INTRODUCTION 1 7

must remain in ignorance of the secret of her ideal royalty,
and if she behold her husband she must lose him. Here
Apuleius commentates and interprets Moses, but did not
the Elohim of Israel and the gods of Apuleius both issue
from the sanctuaries of Memphis and Thebes ? Psyche is
the sister of Eve, or, rather, is Eve spiritualised. Both
desire to know and lose innocence for the honour of the
ordeal. Both deserve to go down into hell, one to bring
back the antique box of Pandora, the other to find and to
crush the head of the old serpent, who is the symbol of
time and of evil. Both are guilty of the crime which must
be expiated by the Prometheus of ancient days and the
Lucifer of the Christian legend, the one delivered, the other
overcome, by Hercules and by the Saviour. The great
magical secret is, therefore, the lamp and dagger of
Psyche, the apple of Eve, the sacred fire of Prometheus, the
burning sceptre of Lucifer, but it is also the holy cross of
the Eedeemer. To be acquainted with it sufficiently to
abuse or divulge it is to deserve all sufferings ; to know it
as one should know it, namely, to make use of and conceal
it, is to be master of the absolute.

Everything is contained in a single word, which consists
of four letters ; it is the Tetragram of the Hebrews, the
AzpT of the alchemists, the Thot of the Bohemians, or
the Taro of the Kabbalists. This word, expressed after so
many manners, means God for the profane, man for the
philosophers, and imparts to the adepts the final word of
human sciences and the key of divine power ; but he only
can use it who understands the necessity of never revealing
it. Had (Edipus, instead of killing the sphinx, overcome
it, harnessed it to his chariot, and thus entered Thebes, he
would have been king without incest, without misfortunes,
and without exile. Had Psyche, by meekness and affection,
persuaded Love to reveal himself, she would never have lost
Love. Now, Love is one of the mythological images of the
great secret and the great agent, because it at once expresses
an action and a passion, a void and a plenitude, a shaft and

B

18 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

a wound. The initiates will understand me, and, on account
of the profane, I must not speak more clearly.

After the marvellous Golden Ass of Apuleius, we find no
more magical epics. Science, conquered in Alexandria by
the fanaticism of the murderers of Hypatia, became Chris-
tian, or, rather, concealed itself under Christian veils with
Ammonius, Synesius, and the pseudonymous author of the
books of Dionysius the Areopagite. In such times it was
needful to excuse miracles by the garb of superstition and
science by an unintelligible language. Hieroglyphic writing
was revived ; pantacles and characters were invented to
summarise an entire doctrine by a sign, a whole sequence
of tendencies and revelations in a word. What was the end
of the aspirants to knowledge ? They sought the secret of
the great work, or the philosophical stone, or the perpetual
motion, or the quadrature of the circle, or the universal
medicine — formulas which often saved them from persecu-
tion and hatred by causing them to be taxed with madness,
and all signifying one of the phases of the great magical
secret, as we shall shew later on. This absence of epics
continues till our Romance of the Rose ; but the rose-symbol,
which expresses also the mysterious and magical sense of
Dante's poem, is borrowed from the transcendent Kabbalah,
and it is time that we should have recourse to this immense
and concealed source of universal philosophy.

The Bible, with all its allegories, gives expression to the
religious knowledge of the Hebrews in only an incomplete
and veiled manner. The book which we have mentioned,
the hieratic characters of which we shall explain subse-
quently, that book which William Postel names the Genesis
of Enoch, certainly existed before Moses and the prophets,
whose doctrine, fundamentally identical with that of the
ancient Egyptians, had also its exotericism and its veils.
When Moses spoke to the people, says the sacred book
allegorically, he placed a veil over his face, and he removed
it when addressing God; this accounts for the alleged
Biblical absurdities which so exercised the satirical powers

INTRODUCTION 19

of Voltaire. The books were only written as memorials of
tradition, and in symbols that were unintelligible for the
profane. The Pentateuch and the poems of the prophets
were, moreover, elementary works, alike in doctrine, ethics,
and liturgy ; the true secret and traditional philosophy was
not committed to writing until a later period, and under
veils even less transparent. Thus arose a second and
unknown Bible, or rather one which was not comprehended
by Christians, a storehouse, so they say, of monstrous
absurdities, for, in this case, believers, confounded in the
same ignorance, speak the language of sceptics ; a monu-
ment, as we affirm, which comprises all that philosophical
genius and religious genius have ever accomplished or
imagined in the order of the sublime; a treasure encom-
passed by thorns ; a diamond concealed in a rude and
opaque stone : our readers will have already guessed that
we refer to the Talmud. How strange is the destiny of the
Jews, those scapegoats, martyrs, and saviours of the world, a
people full of vitality, a bold and hardy race, which perse-
cutions have always preserved intact, because it has not
yet accomplished its mission ! Do not our apostolical
traditions declare that, after the decline of faith among
the Gentiles, salvation shall again come forth out of the
house of Jacob, and that then the crucified Jew who is
adored by the Christians will give the empire of the world
into the hands of God his Father ?

On penetrating into the sanctuary of the Kabbalah one
is seized with admiration at the sight of a doctrine so
logical, so simple, and, at the same time, so absolute. The
essential union of ideas and signs ; the consecration of the
most fundamental realities by primitive characters ; the
trinity of words, letters, and numbers ; a philosophy simple
as the alphabet, profound and infinite as the Word;
theorems more complete and luminous than those of
Pythagoras ; a theology which may be summed up on the
fingers ; an infinite which can be held in the hollow of an
infant's hand ; ten figures and twenty-two letters, a triangle,

20 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

a square, and a circle ; these are the entire elements of the
Kabbalah. These are the component principles of the
written Word, reflection of that spoken Word which created
the world ! All truly dogmatic religions have issued from
the Kabbalah and return therein ; whatsoever is grand or
scientific in the religious dreams of all the illuminated,
Jacob Boehme, Swedenborg, Saint Martin, &c., is borrowed
from the Kabbalah ; all masonic associations owe to it their
secrets and their symbols. The Kabbalah alone consecrates
the alliance of universal reason and the divine Word ; it
establishes, by the counterpoise of two forces apparently
opposed, the eternal balance of being ; it only reconciles
reason with faith, power with liberty, science with mystery ;
it has the keys of the present, past, and future !

To become initiated into the Kabbalah, it is insufficient
to read and to meditate upon the writings of Eeuchlin,
G-alatinus, Kirch er, or Picus de Mirandola ; it is necessary
to study and to understand the Hebrew writers in the
collection of Pistorius, the Septer Jetzirah above all ; it is
necessary also to master the great book Zohar, read atten-
tively in the collection of 1684, entitled Kallala Denudata,
the treatise of Kabbalistic Pneumatics, and that of the
Revolution of Souls ; and afterwards to enter boldly into the
luminous darkness of the whole dogmatic and allegorical
body of the Talmud. Then we shall be in a position to
understand William Postel, and can admit secretly that
apart from his very premature and over-generous dreams
about the emancipation of women, this celebrated, learned,
illuminated man could not have been so mad as is pre-
tended by those who have not read him.

We have sketched rapidly the history of occult philosophy ;
we have indicated its sources and analysed in a few words
its principal books. This work refers only to the science, but
magic, or, rather, magical power, is composed of two things, a
science and a force ; without the force the science is nothing,
or, rather, it is a danger. To give knowledge to power alone,
such is the supreme law of initiations. Hence did the

INTRODUCTION 21

Great Revealer say : " The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent only shall carry it away." The
door of truth is closed like the sanctuary of a virgin; he
must be a man who would enter. All miracles are pro-
mised to faith, and what is faith except the audacity of a
will which does not hesitate in the darkness, but advances
towards the light in spite of all ordeals, and surmounting all
obstacles ? It is unnecessary to repeat here the history of
ancient initiations; the more dangerous and terrible they
were, the greater was their efficacy. Hence, in those days,
the world had men to govern and instruct it. The sacerdotal
art and the royal art consisted above all in ordeals of
courage, discretion, and will. It was a novitiate similar to
that of those priests who, under the name of Jesuits, are so
unpopular at the present day, but would govern the world,
notwithstanding, had they a truly wise and intelligent chief.

After passing our life in the search after the absolute in
religion, science, and justice ; after turning in the circle of
Faust, we have reached the primal doctrine and the first
book of humanity. There we pause, there we have dis-
covered the secret of human omnipotence and indefinite
progress, the key of all symbolisms, the first and final
doctrine, and we have come to understand what was meant
by that expression so often made use of in the Gospel —
the Kingdom of God.

To provide a fixed point as a fulcrum for human activity
is to solve the problem of Archimedes by realising the
application of his famous lever. This it is which was
accomplished by the great initiators who have electrified
the world, and they could not have done so except by means
of the great and incommunicable secret. However, as
a guarantee of its renewed youth, the symbolical phoenix
never reappeared before the eyes of the world without
having solemnly consumed the remains and evidences of
his previous life. It is thus that Moses caused all those to
perish in the desert who could have known Egypt and her
mysteries ; thus, at Ephesus, St Paul burnt all books which

22 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

treated of the occult sciences ; thus, finally, the French
Kevolution, daughter of the great Johannite Orient and the
ashes of the Templars, spoliated the churches and blas-
phemed the allegories of the divine cultus. But all doctrines
and all revivals proscribe magic, and condemn its mysteries
to the flames and to oblivion. The reason is that each
cultus or philosophy which comes into the world is a
Benjamin of humanity which lives by the death of its
mother ; it is because the symbolical serpent seems ever
devouring its own tail ; it is because, as essential condition
of existence, a void is necessary to every plenitude, space
for every dimension, an affirmation for each negation ; it is
the eternal realisation of the phoanix allegory.

Two illustrious scholars have already preceded me along
the path I am travelling, but they have, so to speak, spent
the dark night therein. I refer to Volney and Dupuis, to
Dupuis above all, whose immense erudition has produced
only a negative work, for in the origin of all religions he
has seen nothing but astronomy, taking thus the symbolic
cycle for doctrine and the calendar for legend. He was
deficient in one branch of knowledge, that of true magic,
which comprises the secrets of the Kabbalah. Dupuis
passed through the antique sanctuaries like the prophet
Ezekiel over the plain strewn with bones, and only under-
stood death, for want of that word which collects the virtue
of the four winds, and can make a living people of all the
vast ossuary, by crying to the ancient symbols : " Arise !
Take up a new form and walk ! " Hence the hour has
come when we must have the boldness to attempt what no
one has dared to perform previously. Like Julian, we
would rebuild the temple, and in so doing we do not believe
that we shall be belying a wisdom that we adore, which
also Julian would himself have been worthy to adore, had
the rancorous and fanatical doctors of his period permitted
him to understand it. For us the temple has two pillars, on
one of which Christianity has inscribed its name. We have,
therefore, no wish to attack Christianity; far from it, we

INTRODUCTION 23

seek to explain and accomplish it. Intelligence and will have
alternately exercised their power in the world ; religion and
philosophy are still at war in our own days, but they must
end by agreeing. The provisional object of Christianity was
to establish, by obedience and faith, a supernatural or religious
equality among men, and to immobilise intelligence by faith,
so as to provide a fulcrum for virtue which came for the
destruction of the aristocracy of science, or, rather, to replace
that aristocracy already destroyed. Philosophy, on the
contrary, has laboured to bring back men by liberty and
reason to natural inequality, and to substitute astuteness for
virtue by inaugurating the reign of industry. Neither of
the two operations has proved complete and adequate,
neither has brought men to perfection and felicity. What
is now dreamed, almost without daring to hope for it, is an
alliance between these two forces so long regarded as con-
trary, and there is good ground for desiring their union, for
these two great powers of the human soul are no more
opposed to one another than the sex of man is opposed to
that of woman; undoubtedly they differ, but their appar-
ently contrary dispositions come only from their aptitude to
meet and unite.

" There is no less proposed, therefore, than an universal
solution of all problems ? "

No doubt, since we are concerned with explaining the
philosophical stone, perpetual motion, the secret of the great
work and of the universal medicine. We shall be accused
of insanity, like the divine Paracelsus, or of charlatanism,
like the great and unfortunate Agrippa. If the pyre of
Urban Grandier be extinguished, the sullen proscriptions of
silence and of calumny remain. We do not brave but are
resigned to them. We have not sought ourselves the pub-
lication of this book, and we believe that if the time be
come to produce speech, it will be produced by us or by
others. We shall therefore remain calm and wait.

Our work has two parts; in the one we establish the
Kabbalistic and magical doctrine in its entirety ; the other

24 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

is consecrated to the cultus, that is, to ceremonial magic.
The one is that which the ancient sages termed the clavicle,
the other that which rural people still call the grimoire.
The numbers and subjects of the chapters, which correspond
in both parts, are in no sense arbitrary, and are all indicated
in the great universal key, of which we give for the first
time a complete and adequate explanation. Let this work
now go its way where it wills, and become what Providence
determines ; it is finished, and we believe it to be enduring,
because it is strong, like all that is reasonable and con-
scientious.

ELIPHAS LEVI.

THE

DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

1 N A

THE CANDIDATE

DISCIPLINA ENSOPH KETER

WHEN a philosopher adopted as the basis for a new apoca-
lypse of human wisdom the axiom : " I think, therefore I
am," in a measure he unconsciously altered, from the stand-
point of Christian revelation, the old conception of the
Supreme Being. I am that I am, said the Being of beings
of Moses. I am he who thinks, says the man of Descartes,
and to think being to speak inwardly, this man may affirm
like the God of St John the Evangelist : I am he in whom
and by whom the word manifests — In prindpio erat verbum.
Now, what is a principle ? It is a groundwork of speech, it
is a reason for the existence of the word. The essence of
the word is in the principle ; the principle is that which is;
intelligence is a principle which speaks. What, further, is
intellectual light ? It is speech. What is revelation ? It
is also speech ; being is the principle, speech is the means,
and the plenitude or development and perfection of being is
the end. To speak is to create. But to say : " I think,
therefore I exist," is to argue from consequence to principle,
and certain contradictions which have been adduced by a
great writer, Lamennais, have abundantly proved the philo-
sophical imperfection of this method. I am, therefore some-
thing exists — would appear to us a more primitive and

28 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

simple foundation for experimental philosophy, I AM,
THEREFORE BEING EXISTS. Ego sum gui sum — such is the
first revelation of God in man and of man in the world,
while it is also the first axiom of occult philosophy. rrnN
1£>N nviK. Being is being. Hence this philosophy, having
that which is for its principle, is in no sense hypothesis or
guesswork.

Mercurius Trismegistus begins his admirable symbol,
known under the name of the Emerald Table, by this three-
fold affirmation : It is true, it is certain without error, it is
of all truth. Thus, in physics, the true confirmed by ex-
perience ; in philosophy, certitude purged from any alloy of
error ; in the domain of religion or the infinite, absolute
truth indicated by analogy ; such are the first necessities of
true science, and magic only can impart these to its adepts.

But you, before all things, who are you, thus taking this
work in your hands and proposing to read it ? On the
pediment of a temple consecrated by antiquity to the God
of Light was an inscription of two words : " Know thyself."
I impress the same counsel on every man when he seeks to
approach science. Magic, which the men of old denominated
the sanctum regnum, the holy kingdom, or kingdom of God,
reynum Dei, exists only for kings and for priests. Are you
priests ? Are you kings ? The priesthood of magic is not
a vulgar priesthood, and its royalty enters not into compete
tion with the princes of this world. The monarchs of
science are the priests of truth, and their sovereignty is
hidden from the multitude like their prayers and sacrifices.
The kings of science are men who know the truth and the
truth has made free, according to the specific promise given
by the most mighty of the initiators.

The man who is enslaved by his passions or worldly pre-
judices can in no wise be initiated ; he must alter or he will
never attain; hence he cannot be an adept, for the word
signifies a person who has attained by will and by work.
The man who loves his own opinions and fears to part with
them, who suspects new truths, who is unprepared to doubt

THE CANDIDATE 29

everything rather than admit anything on chance, should
close this book ; for him it is useless and dangerous ; he will
fail to understand it, and it will trouble him, while if he
should divine its meaning, it will be a still greater source of
disquietude. If you hold by anything in the world more
than by reason, truth, and justice ; if your will be uncertain
and vacillating, either in good or evil ; if logic alarm you,
or the naked truth make you blush ; if you are hurt when
accepted errors are assailed ; condemn this work straight
away ; do not read it ; let it cease to exist for you ; but at
the same time do not cry it down as dangerous. The secrets
which it records will be understood by an elect few, and
will be held back by those who understand them. Shew
light to the birds of the night-time, and you hide their light ;
it is the light which blinds them, and for them is more dark
than the darkness. I shall therefore speak clearly and make
known everything, with the firm conviction that initiates
alone, or those who deserve initiation, will read all and
understand in part.

There is a true and a false science, a divine magic and
an infernal magic — in other words, one which is delusive
and darksome ; it is our task to reveal the one and to un-
veil the other, to distinguish the magician from the sorcerer,
and the adept from the charlatan. The magician avails
himself of a force which he knows, the sorcerer seeks to
abuse a force which he does not understand. If it be
possible in a scientific work to employ a term so vulgar and
so discredited, then the devil gives himself to the magician
and the sorcerer gives himself to the devil. The magician
is the sovereign pontiff of nature, the sorcerer is her profaner
only. The sorcerer bears the same relation to the magician
that a superstitious and fanatical person bears to a truly
religious man.

Before advancing further let us tersely define magic.
Magic is the traditional science of the secrets of nature
which has been transmitted to us from the magi. By
means of this science the adept becomes invested with

30 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

a species of relative omnipotence and can operate super-
humanly — that is, after a manner which transcends the
normal possibility of men. Thereby many celebrated hiero-
phants, such as Mercurius Trismegistus, Osiris, Orpheus,
Apollonius of Tyana, and others whom it might be danger-
ous or unwise to name, came after their death to be adored
and invoked as gods. Thereby others also, according to
that ebb-and-flow of opinion which is responsible for the
caprices of success, became emissaries of infernus or sus-
pected adventurers, like the emperor Julian, Apuleius, the
enchanter Merlin, and that arch-sorcerer, as he was termed
in his day, the illustrious and unfortunate Cornelius
Agrippa.

To attain the sanctum regmim, in other words, the know-
ledge and power of the magi, there are four indispensable
conditions — an intelligence illuminated by study, an intre-
pidity which nothing can check, a will which nothing can
break, and a discretion which nothing can corrupt and
nothing intoxicate. To KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP
SILENCE — such are the four words of the magus, inscribed
upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx. These four
words can be combined after four manners, and explained
four times by one another.*

On the first page of the Book of Hermes the adept
is depicted with a large hat, which, if turned down, would
conceal his entire head. One hand is extended towards
heaven, which he seems to command with his rod, while
the other is placed upon his breast ; before him are the chief
symbols or instruments of science, and he has others hidden
in a juggler's wallet. His body and arms form the letter
Aleph, the first of the alphabet which the Jews borrowed
from the Egyptians ; to this symbol we shall have occasion
to recur later on.

The magus is truly what the Hebrew Kabbalists call the
Microprosopus, that is, the creator of the little world. The
first of all magical sciences being the knowledge of one's self,

* See the Tarot cards.

THE CANDIDATE 31

so is one's own creation first of all works of science; it
contains the others, and is the principle of the great work.
The term, however, requires explanation. Supreme reason
being the sole invariable and consequently imperishable
principle — what we term death being change — hence the
intelligence which cleaves closely to this principle and, in
a manner, identifies itself therewith, does hereby make itself
unchangeable, and, as a result, immortal. To cleave in-
variably to reason, it will be understood that it is necessary
to attain independence of all those forces which by their
fatal and inevitable movement produce the alternatives of
life and death. To know how to suffer, to forbear, and to
die — such are the first secrets which place us beyond reach
of affliction, the desires of the flesh, and the fear of annihila-
tion. The man who seeks and finds a glorious death has
faith in immortality and universal humanity believes in it
with him and for him, raising altars and statues to his
memory in token of eternal life.

Man becomes king of the brutes only by subduing or
taming them ; otherwise he will be their victim or slave.
Brutes are the type of our passions ; they are the instinctive
forces of nature. The world is a field of battle where liberty
struggles with inertia by the opposition of active force.
Physical laws are millstones ; if you cannot be the miller
you must be the grain. You are called to be king of
the air, water, earth, and fire ; but to reign over these four
animals of symbolism, it is necessary to conquer and en-
chain them. He who aspires to be a sage and to know the
great enigma of nature must be the heir and despoiler of
the sphinx ; his the human head in order to possess speech,
his the eagle's wings in order to scale the heights, his the
bull's flanks in order to furrow the depths, his the lion's
talons to make a way on the right and the left, before and
behind.

You, therefore, who seek initiation, are you learned as
Faust ? Are you insensible as Job ? No, is it not so ?
But you may become equal to both if you will. Have you

32 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

overcome the vortices of vague thoughts ? Are you without
indecision or capriciousness ? Do you consent to pleasure
only when you will, and do you wish for it only when you
should ? No, is it not so ? Not invariably at least, but
it may become so if you choose. The sphinx has not only a
man's head, it has woman's breasts ; do you know how to
resist feminine charms ? No, is it not so ? And you laugh
outright in replying, vaunting your moral weakness for the
glorification of your physical and vital force. Be it so ; I
allow you to render this homage to the ass of Sterne or
Apuleius. The ass has its merit, I agree ; it was consecrated
to Priapus as was the goat to the god of Mendes. But
take it for what it is worth, and decide whether ass or man
shall be master. He alone can possess truly the pleasure
of love who has conquered the love of pleasure. To be
able and to forbear is to be twice able. Woman enchains
you by your desires ; master your desires and you will en-
chain her. The greatest injury that can be inflicted on a
man is to call him a coward. Now, what is a cowardly
person ? One who neglects his moral dignity in order to
obey blindly the instincts of nature. As a fact, in the
presence of danger it is natural to be afraid and seek flight ;
why, then, is it shameful ? Because honour has erected it
into a law that we must prefer our duty to our inclinations
or fears. What is honour from this point of view ? It is
universal presentience of immortality and appreciation of the
means which can lead to it. The last trophy which man
can win from death is to triumph over the appetite for life,
not by despair, but by a more exalted hope, which is con-
tained in faith, for all that is noble and honest, by the un-
divided consent of the world. To learn self-conquest is
therefore to learn life, and the austerities of stoicism were
no vain parade of freedom ! To yield to the forces of
nature is to follow the stream of collective life, and to be
the slave of secondary causes. To resist and subdue nature
is to make one's self a personal and imperishable life ; it is
to break free from the vicissitudes of life and death. Every

THE CANDIDATE 33

man who is prepared to die rather than renounce truth and
justice is most truly living, for immortality abides in his
soul. To find or to form such men was the end of all
ancient initiations. Pythagoras disciplined his pupils by
silence and all kinds of self-denial ; candidates in Egypt
were tried by the four elements; and we know the self-
inflicted austerities of fakirs and brahmans in India for
attaining the kingdom of free will and divine independence.
All macerations of asceticism are borrowed from the initia-
tions of ancient mysteries ; they have ceased because those
qualified for initiation, no longer finding initiators, and
the leaders of conscience becoming in the lapse of time
as uninstructed as the vulgar, the blind have grown weary
of following the blind, and no one has cared to pass through
ordeals the end of which was now only in doubt and despair ;
for the path of light was lost. To succeed in performing
something we must know what it is proposed to do, or at
least must have faith in some one who does know it. But
shall I stake my life on a venture, or follow someone at
chance who himself knows not where he is going ?

We must not set out rashly along the path of the trans-
cendent sciences, but, once started, we must reach the end
or perish. To doubt is to become a fool ; to pause is to
fall ; to recoil is to cast one's self into an abyss. You,
therefore, who are undertaking the study of this book, if
you persevere with it to the close and understand it, it will
make you either a monarch or a madman. Do what you
will with the volume, you will be unable to despise or to
forget it. If you are pure, it will be your light ; if strong,
your arm ; if holy, your religion ; if wise, the rule of your
wisdom. But if you are wicked, for you it will be an
infernal torch ; it will lacerate your breast like a poniard ;
it will rankle in your memory like a remorse ; it will people
your imagination with chimeras, and will drive you through
folly to despair. You will endeavour to laugh at it, and will
only gnash your teeth ; this book will be the file in the fable
which the serpent tried to bite, but it destroyed all his teeth.

c

34 THE DOCTEINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Let us now enter on the series of initiations. I have
said that revelation is the word. As a fact, the word, or
speech, is the veil of being and the characteristic sign of
life. Every form is the veil of a word, because the idea
which is the mother of the word is the sole reason for the
existence of forms. Every figure is a character, every char-
acter derives from and returns into a word. For this reason
the ancient sages, of whom Trismegistus is the organ, formu-
lated their sole dogma in these terms : — " That which is
above is like that which is below, and that which is below
is like that which is above." In other words, the form is
proportional to the idea ; the shadow is the measure of the
body calculated with its relation to the luminous ray ; the
scabbard is as deep as the sword is long ; the negation is
in proportion to the contrary affirmation ; production is
equal to destruction in the movement which preserves life ;
and there is no point in infinite space which may not be
regarded as the centre of a circle having an extending
circumference indefinitely receding into space. Every in-
dividuality is, therefore, indefinitely perfectible, since the
moral order is analogous to the physical, and since we
cannot conceive any point as unable to dilate, increase, and
radiate in a philosophically infinite circle. What can be
affirmed of the soul in its totality may be affirmed of each
faculty of the soul. The intelligence and will of man are
instruments of incalculable power and capacity. But in-
telligence and will possess as their help-mate and instrument
a faculty which is too imperfectly known, the omnipotence
of which belongs exclusively to the domain of magic. I
speak of the imagination, which the Kabbalists term the
Diaphane, or the Translucid. Imagination, in effect, is like
the soul's eye; therein forms are outlined and preserved;
thereby we behold the reflections of the invisible world ; it
is the glass of visions and the apparatus of magical life ; by
its intervention we heal diseases, modify the seasons, drive
death away from the living, and raise the dead to life, be-
cause it is the imagination which exalts the will and gives

THE CANDIDATE 35

it a hold upon the universal agent. Imagination determines
the shape of the child in its mother's womb, and decides
the destiny of men ; it lends wings to contagion, and directs
the weapons of warfare. Are you exposed in battle ?
Believe yourself to be invulnerable, like Achilles, and you
will be so, says Paracelsus. Fear attracts bullets, but they
are repelled by courage. It is well known that persons with
amputated limbs feel pain in the very members which they
possess no longer. Paracelsus operated upon living blood by
medicating the product of a bleeding; he cured headache
at a distance by treating hair cut from the patient. By
the science of the imaginary unity and solidarity of all parts
of the body, he anticipated and outstripped all the theories,
or rather all the experiences, of our most celebrated mag-
netisers. Hence his cures were miraculous, and to his name
of Philip Theophrastus Bombast, he deserved the addition of
Aureolus Paracelsus, with the further epithet of divine !

Imagination is the instrument of the adaptation of the
word. Imagination applied to reason is genius. Eeason is
one, as genius is one, in the multiplicity of its works. There
is one principle, there is one truth, there is one reason, there
is one absolute and universal philosophy. Whatsoever is
subsists in unity considered as beginning, and returns into
unity considered as end. One is in one ; that is to say, all
is in all. Unity is the principle of numbers ; it is also the
principle of motion, and, consequently, of life. The entire
human body is summed up in the unity of a single organ,
which is the brain. All religions are summed up in the
unity of a single dogma, which is the affirmation of being
and its equality with itself, which constitutes its mathe-
matical value. There is only one dogma in magic, and it is
this : — The visible is the manifestation of the invisible, or,
in other terms, the perfect word, in things appreciable and
visible, bears an exact proportion to the things which are
inappreciable by our senses and unseen by our eyes. The
magus uplifts one hand towards heaven and points down
the other to earth, and he says : " Above, immensity : Below,

36 THE DOCTEINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

immensity still ! Immensity equals immensity." — This is
true in things seen as in things unseen.

The first letter in the alphabet of the sacred language,
Aleph, «, represents a man extending one hand towards
heaven and the other to earth. It is an expression of the
active principle in everything; it is creation in heaven
corresponding to the omnipotence of the word below. This
letter is a pantacle in itself, that is, a character expressing
the universal science. It is supplementary to the sacred
signs of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm ; it explains the
masonic double-triangle and the five-pointed blazing star ;
for the word is one and revelation is one. By endowing
man with reason, God gave him speech ; and revelation,
manifold in its forms but one in its principle, consists
entirely in the universal word, the interpreter of the
absolute reason. This is the significance of that term so
much misconstrued, catholicity, which, in modern hieratic
language, means infallibility. The universal in reason is
the absolute, and the absolute is the infallible. If absolute
reason impelled universal society to believe irresistibly the
utterance of a child, that child would be infallible by the
ordination of God and of all humanity. Faith is nothing
else but reasonable confidence in this unity of reason and in
this universality of the word. To believe is to place con-
fidence in that which we as yet do not know when reason
assures us beforehand of ultimately knowing or at least
recognising it. Absurd are the so-called philosophers who
cry, " I will never believe in a thing which I do not know ! "
Shallow reasoners ! If you knew, would you need to believe ?

But must I believe on chance, and apart from reason ?
Certainly not. Blind and haphazard belief is superstition
and folly. We may believe in causes which reason compels
us to admit on the evidence of effects known and appreciated
by science. Science ! Great word and great problem !
What is science ? We shall answer in the second chapter
of this book.

THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE 37

THE PILLAKS OF THE TEMPLE

CHOCHMAH DOMUS GNOSIS

SCIENCE is the absolute and complete possession of truth.
Hence have the sages of all the centuries trembled before
such an absolute and terrible word ; they have hesitated to
arrogate to themselves the first privilege of divinity by
assuming the possession of science, and have been contented,
instead of the verb to know, with that which expresses
cognisance, while, instead of the word science, they have
adopted that of gnosis, which represents simply the notion
of learning by intuition. What, in fact, does man know ?
Nothing, and at the same time he is allowed to ignore nothing.
Devoid of knowledge, he is called upon to know all. Now,
knowledge supposes the duad — a being who knows and an
object known. The duad is the generator of society and of
law ; it is also the number of the gnosis. The duad is
unity multiplying itself in order to create, and hence in
sacred symbolism Eve issues from the inmost bosom of
Adam. Adam is the human tetragram, summed up in the
mysterious Jod, type of the Kabbalistic phallus. By adding
to this Jod the triadic name of Eve, the name of Jehova is
formed, which is eminently the Kabbalistic and magical
word, mrr, which the high-priest in the temple pronounced
Jodcheva. So unity complete in the fruitfulness of the
triad forms therewith the tetrad, which is the key of all
numbers, of all movements, and of all forms. By a revo-
lution about its own centre, the square produces a circle
equal to itself, and this is the quadrature of the circle, the
circular movement of four equal angles around the same
point.

38 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

" That which is above equals that which is below," says
Hermes. Here then is the duad serving as the measure of
unity, and the relation of equality between above and below
forms with these the triad. The created principle is the
ideal phallus ; the created principle is the formal cteis.
The insertion of the vertical phallus into the horizontal cteis
forms the stauros of the Gnostics, or the philosophical cross
of masons. Thus, the intersection of two produces four,
which, by its movement, defines the circle with all degrees
thereof.

K is man ; 3 is woman ; I is the principle ; 2 is the
word ; A is the active ; B is the passive ; the monad is
Bohas ; the duad is Jakin. In the trigrams of Fohi, unity
is the yang and the duad is the yin.

yang yin

Bohas and Jakin are the names of the two symbolical pillars
without the chief door of Solomon's Kabbalistic temple. In
the Kabbalah these pillars explain all mysteries of an-
tagonism, whether natural, political, or religious, and they
explain also the procreative struggle between the man and
the woman, for, according to the law of nature, the woman
must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her.
The active principle seeks the passive principle, the plenum
desires the void, the serpent's jaw attracts the serpent's
tail, and in turning upon himself, he, at the same time,
flies and pursues himself. Woman is the creation
of man, and universal creation is the bride of the First
Principle.

When the Supreme Being became a creator, he erected a
jod or a phallus, and to provide a place in the fulness of the
uncreated light, it was necessary to hollow out a ctei's or

THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE 39

trench of shadow equivalent to the dimension determined
by his creative desire, and attributed by him to the ideal
jod of the radiating light. Such is the mysterious language
of the Kabbalists in the Talmud, and on account of vulgar
ignorance and malignity, it is impossible for us to explain or
simplify it further. What then, is the creation ? It is the
mansion of the creative Word. What is the cte'is ? It is
the mansion of the phallus. What is the nature of the
active principle ? To diffuse. What is that of the passive ?
To gather in and to fructify. What is man ? He who
initiates, who bruises, who labours, who sows. What is
woman ? She who forms, reunites, irrigates, and harvests.
Man wages war, woman brings peace about ; man destroys
to create, woman builds up to preserve ; man is revolution,
woman is conciliation ; man is the father of Cain, woman
the mother of Abel. What, moreover, is wisdom ? It is
the agreement and union of two principles, the mildness of
Abel directing the activity of Cain, man guided by the
sweet inspirations of woman, debauchery conquered by
lawful marriage, revolutionary energy softened and subdued
by the gentleness of order and peace, pride subjugated by
love, science acknowledging the inspirations of faith. Then
human science becomes wise, and submits itself to the infal-
libility of universal reason, instructed by love or universal
charity. Then it can take the name of gnosis, because it
knows at least that as yet it cannot boast of knowing
perfectly.

The monad can only manifest by the duad ; unity
itself and the notion of unity at once constitute two.
The unity of the Macrocosm reveals itself by the two
opposite points of two triangles. Human unity fulfils
itself to right and left. Primitive man is androgynous.
All organs of the human body are disposed in pairs,
excepting the nose, the tongue, the umbilicus, and the
Kabbalistic jod. Divinity, one in its essence, has
two essential conditions as the fundamental grounds of
its being — necessity and liberty. The laws of supreme

40 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

reason necessitate and rule liberty in God, who is of
necessity wise and reasonable.

To make light visible God has merely hypotheticated the
shadow. To manifest the truth he has permitted the
possibility of doubt. The shadow bodies forth the light,
and the possibility of error is requisite for the temporal
manifestation of truth. If the buckler of Satan did not
intercept the spear of Michael, the might of the angel would
be lost in the void or manifested by infinite destruction
launched below from above. Did not the heel of Michael
restrain Satan in his ascent, Satan would dethrone God, or
rather he would lose himself in the abysses of the altitude.
Hence Satan is needful to Michael as the pedestal to the
statue, and Michael is necessary to Satan as the brake to
the locomotive. In analogical and universal dynamics one
leans only on that which resists. Furthermore, the universe
is balanced by two forces which maintain it in equilibrium,
the force which attracts and that which repels. They exist
alike in physics, in philosophy, and in religion ; in physics
they produce equilibrium, in philosophy criticism, in religion
progressive revelation. The ancients represented this mystery
in the conflict between Eros and Anteros, the struggle
between Jacob and the angel, and by the equilibrium of the
golden mountain, which gods on the one side and demons

THE PILLAKS OF THE TEMPLE 41

on the other hold bound by the symbolic serpent of India.
It is also typified by the caduceus of Hermanubis, by the two
cherubim of the ark, by the twofold sphinx of the chariot of
Osiris, and by the two seraphim, respectively black and
white. Its scientific reality is demonstrated by the pheno-
mena of polarity, and by the universal law of sympathies
or antipathies.

The undiscerning disciples of Zoroaster divided the duad
without referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of
the temple, and endeavouring to halve God. Conceive the
absolute as two, and you must immediately conceive it as
three to recover the unity principle. For this reason, the
material elements, analogous to the divine elements, are
understood firstly as four, explained as two, and exist
ultimately as three.

Eevelation is the duad ; every word is double, and sup-
poses two. The ethic which results from revelation is
founded on antagonism, which results from the duad.
Spirit and form attract and repel one another, like sign
and idea, fiction and truth. Supreme reason necessitates
dogma when communicating to finite intelligences, and
dogma, by its passage from the domain of ideas to that
of forms, participates in two worlds, and has inevitably two
senses speaking in succession or simultaneously, that is, to
the spirit and the flesh. So are there two forces in the
moral region, one which assaults and one which curbs and
expiates. They are represented in the mythos of Genesis
by the typical personalities of Cain and Abel. Abel
oppresses Cain by reason of his moral superiority ; Cain
to get free immortalises his brother by slaying him, and
becomes the victim of his own crime. Cain could not suffer
the life of Abel, and the blood of Abel suffers not the sleep
of Cain. In the Gospel the type of Cain is replaced by
that of the Prodigal Son, whom his father fully forgives
because he returns after having endured much.

There is mercy and there is justice in God ; to the just
He dispenses justice and to sinners mercy. In the soul of

42 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the world, which is the universal agent, there is a current
of love and a current of wrath. This ambient and all-
penetrating fluid ; this ray loosened from the sun's splendour,
and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the power of
central attraction ; this body of the Holy Spirit, which we
term the universal agent, while it was typified by the ancients
under the symbol of a serpent devouring his tail ; this
electro-magnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, is
depicted in archaic monuments by the girdle of Isis, twice-
folded in a love-knot round two poles, as well as by the
serpent devouring his own tail, emblematic of prudence and
of Saturn. Motion and life consist in the extreme tension
of two forces. " I would thou wert cold or hot," said the
Master. As a fact, a great sinner is more really alive than is
a tepid, effeminate man, and the fulness of his return to virtue
will be in proportion to the extent of his errors. She who
is destined to crush the serpent's head is intelligence, which
ever rises above the stream of blind forces. The Kabbalists
call her the virgin of the sea, whose dripping feet the in-
fernal dragon, stupefied by delight, crawls forward to lick
with his fiery tongues. These are the hieratic mysteries of
the duad. But there is one, and the last of all, which must
not be made known, the reason, according to Hermes Tris-
megistus, being the malcomprehension of the vulgar, who
would ascribe to the necessities of science the immoral
aspect of blind fatality. " By the fear of the unknown
must the crowd be restrained," he observes in another
place, and Christ also said : " Cast not your pearls before
swine, lest, trampling them under their feet, they turn and
rend you." The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of
which the fruits are death, is the type of this hieratic secret
of the duad, which could only be misconstrued if divulged,
and would lead commonly to the unholy denial of free will,
which is the principle of moral life. It is hence in the
essence of things that the revelation of this secret means
death, and it is not at the same time the great secret
of magic ; but the arcanum of the duad leads up to that

THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE 43

of the tetrad, or more correctly proceeds therefrom, and
is resolved by the triad, which contains the word of the
enigma propounded by the sphinx, as it was required
to have been found in order to save the life, atone for
the unconscious crime, and establish the Kingdom of
(Edipus.

In the hieroglyphic work of Hermes, the Tarot, called also
the book of Thoth, the duad is represented either by the
horns of Isis, having her head veiled and an open book
partially concealed under her mantle, or otherwise by a
sovereign lady, Juno, the Greek goddess, having one hand
uplifted towards heaven and the other pointed to earth, as
if formulating by this gesture the one and twofold dogma
which is the foundation of magic, and begins the marvellous
symbols of the Emerald Table of Hermes. In the Apoca-
lypse of St John there is a reference to two witnesses or
martyrs on whom prophetic tradition confers the names of
Elias and Enoch — Elias, man of faith, enthusiasm, miracle ;
Enoch one with him who is called Hermes by the Egyptians,
honoured by the Phoenicians as Cadmus, author of the
sacred alphabet, and the universal key to the initiations of
the Logos, father of the Kabbalah, he who, according to the
sacred allegories, did not die like other men, but was trans-
ported to heaven, to return at the end of time. Much the
same statement is made of St John himself, who recovered
and explained in his Apocalypse the symbolism of the word
of Enoch. This resurrection of St John and Enoch, ex-
pected at the close of the ages of ignorance, will be the
restitution of their doctrine by the comprehension of the
Kabbalistic keys which unlock the temple of unity and
universal philosophy, too long occult, and reserved solely for
the elect, who perish at the hands of the world.

But we have said that the reproduction of the monad by
the duad leads of necessity to the conception and dogma of
the triad, so we come now to this great number, which is
the fulness and perfect word of unity.

44 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

3 3 C

THE TEIANGLE OF SOLOMON

PLENITUDO VOCIS BINAH PHYSIS

THE perfect word is the triad, because it supposes an in-
telligent principle, a speaking principle, and a principle
spoken. The absolute, revealing itself by speech, endows
this speech with a sense equivalent to itself, and in the
understanding thereof creates itself a third time. Thus, also,
the sun manifests itself by its light, and proves or makes
this manifestation efficacious by heat.

The triad is traced in space by the heavenly zenith, the
infinite height, connected with east and west by two straight
diverging lines. With this visible triangle reason compares
another which is invisible, but is assumed to be equal in
dimension ; the abyss is its apex and its reversed base is
parallel to the horizontal line stretching from east to west.
These two triangles, combined in a single figure, which is
the six-pointed star, form the sacred symbol of Solomon's
seal, the resplendent star of the Macrocosm. The notion
of the infinite and the absolute is expressed by this sign,
which is the grand pantacle — that is to say, the most
simple and complete abridgment of the science of all
things.

Grammar itself attributes three persons to the verb. The
first is that which speaks, the second that which is spoken
to, and the third the object. In creating, the Infinite
Prince speaks to himself of himself. Such is the explana-
tion of the triad and the origin of the dogma of the Trinity.
The magical dogma is also one in three and three in one.
That which is above is like or equal to that which is below.
Thus, two things which resemble one another and the word
which signifies their resemblance make three. The triad
is the universal dogma. In magic — principle, realisation,

THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON 45

adaptation ; in alchemy — azoth, incorporation, transmuta-
tion ; in theology — God, incarnation, redemption ; in the
human soul — thought, love, and action ; in the family —
father, mother, and child. The triad is the end and
supreme expression of love ; we seek one another as two
only to become three.

There are three intelligible worlds which correspond one
with another by hierarchic analogy ; the natural or physical,
the spiritual or metaphysical, and the divine or religious
worlds. From this principle follows the hierarchy of spirits,
divided into three orders, and again subdivided by the triad
in each of these three orders.

All these revelations are logical deductions from the first
mathematical notions of being and number. Unity must
multiply itself in order to become active. An indivisible,,
motionless, and sterile principle would be unity dead and
incomprehensible. Were God only one He would never be
creator or father. Were he two there would be antagonism
or division in the infinite, which would mean the division
also or death of all possible things. He is therefore three
for the creation by Himself and in His image of the infinite
multitude of beings and numbers. So is He truly one in
Himself and triple in our conception, which also brings us
to behold him as triple in Himself and one in our intelli-
gence and our love. This is a mystery for the faithful, and
a logical necessity for the initiate into the absolute and real
sciences.

The Word manifested by life is realisation or incarnation.
The life of the Word accomplishing its cyclic movement is
adaptation or redemption. This triple dogma was known
in all sanctuaries illuminated by the tradition of the sages.
Do you wish to ascertain which is the true religion ? Seek
that which realises most in the divine order, which humanises
God and makes man divine, which preserves the triadic
dogma intact, which clothes the Word with flesh by making
God manifest to the hands and eyes of the most ignorant,
which finally is by its doctrine suitable to all and can adapt

46 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

itself to all — the religion which is hierarchic and
having allegories and images for children, an exalted philo-
sophy for grown men, sublime hopes and sweet consolations
for the old.

The primeval sages, when seeking the First of Causes,
beheld good and evil in the world; they considered the
shadow and the light ; they compared winter with spring,
age with youth, life with death, and their conclusion was
this : The First Cause is beneficent and severe ; it gives
and takes away life. Then are there two contrary principles,
the one good and the other evil, exclaimed the disciples of
Manes. No, the two principles of universal equilibrium are
not contrary, although contrasted in appearance, for a singular
wisdom opposes one to another. Good is on the right, evil
on the left, but the supreme excellence is above both,
applying evil to the victory of good and good to the
amendment of evil.

The principle of harmony is in unity, and it is this which
imparts such power to the uneven number in magic. Now,
the most perfect of the odd numbers is three, because it is
the trilogy of unity. In the trigrams of Fohi, the superior
triad is composed of three yang, or masculine figures, be-
cause nothing passive can be admitted into the idea of God,
considered as the principle of production in the three worlds.
For the same reason, the Christian trinity by no means
permits the personification of the mother, who is implicitly
included in that of the son. For the same reason, also, it
is contrary to the laws of hieratic and orthodox symbology
to personify the Holy Ghost under the form of a woman.
Woman comes forth from man as nature comes forth from
God ; so Christ ascends Himself to heaven, and assumes the
Virgin Mother : we speak of the ascension of the Saviour,
and the assumption of the Mother of God. God, considered
as Father, has nature for his daughter ; as Son, He has the
Virgin for His mother and the Church for His bride ; as
Holy Spirit, He regenerates and fructifies humanity. Hence,
in the trigrams of Fohi, the three inferior yin correspond

THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON 47

to the three superior yang, for these trigrams constitute a
pantacle like that of the two triangles of Solomon, but
with a triadic interpretation of the six points of the blazing
star.

Dogma is only divine inasmuch as it is truly human —
that is to say, in so far as it sums up the highest reason of
humanity; so also the Master, whom we term the Man-
God, called Himself the Son of Man. Eevelation is the
expression of belief accepted and formulated by universal
reason in the human word, on which account it is said that
the divinity is human and the humanity divine in the Man-
God. We affirm all this philosophically, not theologically,
without infringing in any way on the teaching of the
Church, which condemns, and must always condemn,
magic. Paracelsus and Agrippa did not set up altar
against altar, but bowed to the ruling religion of their
time ; to the elect of science, the things of science ; to
the faithful, the things of faith.

In his hymn to the royal Sun, the Emperor Julian gives
a theory of the triad which is almost identical with that of
the illuminated Swedenborg. The sun of the divine world
is the infinite, spiritual, and uncreated light, which is
verbalised, so to speak, in the philosophical world, and
becomes the fountain of souls and of truth ; then it
incorporates and becomes visible light in the sun of the
third world, the central sun of our suns, of which the fixed
stars are the ever-living sparkles. The Kabbalists compare
the spirit to a substance which remains fluid in the divine
medium, and under the influence of the essential light, its
exterior, however, becoming solidified, like wax, when ex-
posed to the air in the colder realms of reasoning or of
visible forms. These shells, envelopes petrified or carni-
fied, were such an expression possible, are the source of

48 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

errors or of evil which connect with the heaviness and
hardness of the animal envelopes. In the book " Zohar,"
and in that of the " Eevolution of Souls," perverse spirits
or evil demons are never named otherwise than as shells —
cortices. The cortices of the world of spirits are transparent,
while those of the material world are opaque. Bodies are
only temporary shells, whence souls have to be liberated ;
but those which in this life obey the body compose for
themselves an interior body or fluidic shell, which, after
death, becomes their prison-house and torment, until the
time arrives when they succeed in dissolving it in the
warmth of the divine light, towards which, however, the
burden of their grossness hinders them from ascending.
Indeed, they can do so only after infinite struggles, and
by the mediation of the just, who stretch forth their hands
towards them. During the whole period of the process
they are devoured by the interior activity of the captive
spirit, as in a burning furnace. Those who attain the
pyre of expiation burn themselves thereon, like Hercules
upon Mount Etna, and so are delivered from their sufferings,
but the courage of the majority fails before this ordeal,
which seems to them a second death more appalling than
the first, and so they remain in hell, which is, rightly and
actually, eternal ; but therein souls are never precipitated,
nor are they ever retained despite themselves.

The three worlds correspond together by means of the
thirty-two paths of light which are the steps of the sacred
ladder ; every true thought corresponds to a divine grace in
heaven and a good work on earth ; every grace of God
manifests a truth, and produces one or many acts ; recipro-
cally, every act affects a truth or falsehood in the heavens,
a grace or a punishment. When a man pronounces the
tetragram — say, the Kabbalists — the nine heavens sustain
a shock, and then all spirits cry out one upon another:
" Who is it thus disturbing the kingdom of heaven ? "
Then does the earth communicate unto the first heaven
the sins of the rash being who takes the Eternal Name

THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON 49

in vain, and the accusing word is transmitted from
circle to circle, from star to star, and from hierarchy to
hierarchy.

Every speech possesses three senses, every act has a
triple bearing, every form a triple idea, for the absolute
corresponds from world to world by its forms. Every de-
termination of human will modifies nature, affects philo-
sophy, and is written in heaven. There are therefore two
fatalities, the one resulting from the Uncreated Will in its
accord with wisdom, the other from created wills according
with the necessity of secondary causes in their correspondence
with the First Cause. There is hence nothing indifferent in
life, and our apparently most simple resolutions frequently
determine an incalculable series of benefits or evils, above
all in the affinities of our diaphane with the great magical
agent, as we shall explain elsewhere.

The triad, being the fundamental principle of the whole
Kabbalah, or sacred tradition of our fathers, was necessarily
the fundamental dogma of Christianity, the apparent dualism
of which it explains by the intervention of a harmonious
and all-powerful unity. Christ did not put his teaching
into writing, and only revealed it in secret to his favoured
disciple, the one kabbalist, and he a great kabbalist, among
the apostles. So is the apocalypse the book of the gnosis
or secret doctrine of the first Christians, the key of which
doctrine is indicated by an occult versicle of the Lord's
Prayer, which the Vulgate leaves untranslated, while in the
Greek rite, which preserves the traditions of St John, the
priests only are permitted to pronounce it. This versicle,
completely kabbalistic, is found in the text of the Gospel
according to St Matthew, and in several Hebrew copies.
The sacred word Malchuth substituted for Kether, which is
its kabbalistic correspondent, and the balance of Geburah
and Chesed, repeating itself in the circles or heavens called
eons by the Gnostics, provide the keystone of the whole
Christian temple in this occult versicle. It has been re-
tained by Protestants in their New Testament, without their

D

50 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

recovering its lofty and wonderful meaning, which would
have unveiled to them all the mysteries of the apocalypse.
But it is a tradition in the Church that the manifestation
of these mysteries is held over to the last times.

Malchuth, based upon Geburah and Chesed, is the temple
of Solomon having Jakin and Bohas for its pillars ; it is the
adamic doctrine founded, for the one part, on the resigna-
tion of Abel and, for the other, on the labours and self-
reproach of Cain ; it is the equilibrium of being established
on necessity and liberty, stability and motion ; it is the
demonstration of the universal lever sought in vain by
Archimedes. A scholar whose whole talents were employed
in being obscure, who died without seeking to be understood,
resolved this supreme equation, discovered by him in the
Kabbalah, and was in dread of its source transpiring if he
expressed himself more clearly. We have seen one of his
disciples and admirers most indignant, perhaps in good faith,
at the suggestion that his master was a Kabbalist, but we
can state notwithstanding, to the glory of the same learned
man, that his researches have appreciably shortened our
work in the occult sciences, and that the key of the trans-
cendent Kabbalah above all, indicated in the arcane versicle
recently cited, has been skilfully applied to an absolute
reform of all the sciences in the books of Hoan^ Wronski.

The secret virtue of the gospels is therefore contained
in three words, and these three words have established
three dogmas and three hierarchies. All science reposes
upon three principles, as the syllogism upon three terms.
There are also three distinct classes, or three original
and natural ranks, among men, who are called to advance
from the lower to the higher. The Jews term these
three series or degrees in the progress of spirits, Asiah,
Jetzirah, and Briah. The Gnostics, who were Christian
Kabbalists, called them Hyle, Psyche, and Gnosis; by
the Jews the supreme circle was named Atziluth, and by the
Gnostics Pleroma. In the tetragram, the triad, taken at the
beginning of the Word, expresses the divine copulation ;

THE TETRAGRAM 51

taken at the end, it expresses the female and maternity.
Eve has a name of three letters, but the primitive Adam is
signified simply by the letter Jod, whence Jehovah should
be pronounced Jeva, and this point takes us to the great
and supreme mystery of magic, embodied in the tetrad.

4 n D
THE TETRAGEAM

GEBURAH CHESED PORTA LIBRORUM ELEMENTA

IN nature there are two forces producing equilibrium, and
these three constitute a single law. Here, then, is the triad
resumed in unity, and by adding the conception of unity to
that of the triad we are brought to the tetrad, the first
square and perfect number, the source of all numerical com-
binations and the principle of all forms. Affirmation, nega-
tion, discussion, solution, such are the four philosophical
operations of the human mind. Discussion conciliates
negation with affirmation by rendering them necessary to
each other. In the same way, the philosophical triad,
emanating from the antagonism of the duad, is completed by
the tetrad, the four-square ground of all truth. According
to the consecrated dogma, there are three persons in God,
and these three constitute only one Deity. Three and one
provide the conception of four, because unity is required
to explain the three. Hence, in almost all languages, the
name of God consists of four letters, and in Hebrew these
four are really three, one of them being repeated twice, that
which expresses the Word and the creation of the Word.

Two affirmations make two corresponding denials either
possible or necessary. Being is declared, nothing is not.
The affirmation as Word produces affirmation as realisation

52 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

or incarnation of the Word, and each of these affirmations
corresponds to the denial of its opposite. Thus, in the
opinion of the kabbalists, the name of the demon or of evil
is composed of the same letters as the name of God or good-
ness, but spelt backwards. This evil is the last reflection
or imperfect mirage of light in shadow. But all which
exists, whether of good or evil, in light or darkness, exists
and manifests by the tetrad. The affirmation of unity sup-
poses the number four, unless it turns in unity itself as in a
vicious circle. So also the triad, as we have already ob-
served, is explained by the duad and resolved by the tetrad,
which is the squared unity of even numbers and the quad-
rangular base of the cube, unity of construction, of solidity,
and of measure.

The kabbalistic tetragram, Jodheva, expresses God in
humanity and humanity in God. The four astronomical
cardinal points are, relatively to us, the yea and the nay of
light — east and west — and the yea and nay of warmth —
south and north. As we have already said, according to the
sole dogma of the Kabbalah, that which is in visible nature
reveals that which is in the domain of invisible nature, or
secondary causes are in strict proportion and analogous to
the manifestations of the First Cause. So is this First
Cause invariably revealed by the cross — that unity made up
of two, that key to the mysteries of India and Egypt, the
Tau of the patriarchs, the divine sign of Osiris, the Stauros
of the Gnostics, the keystone of the temple, the symbol of
occult masonry ; the cross, central point of the junction of
the right angles of two infinite triangles ; the cross, which
in the French language seems to be the first root and funda-
mental substantive of the verb to believe and the verb to
grow, thus combining the conceptions of science, religion,
and progress.

The great magic agent manifests by four kinds of pheno-
mena, and has been subjected to the experiments of profane
science under four names — caloric, light, electricity, magnet-
ism. It has also received the names of Tetragram, Inri,.

THE TETRAGRAM 53

Azoth, Ether, Od, Magnetic Fluid, Soul of the Earth, Luci-
fer, &c. The great magic agent is the fourth emanation of
the life-principle, of which the sun is the third form — see
the initiates of the school of Alexandria and the dogma of
Hermes Trismegistus. In this way the eye of the world, as
the ancients called it, is the mirage of the reflection of God,
and the soul of the earth is a permanent glance of the sun
which the earth conceives and guards by impregnation. The
moon concurs in this impregnation of the earth by reflecting
a solar image during the night, so that Hermes was right
when he said of the great agent : " The sun is its father, the
moon its mother." Then he adds : " The wind has borne it
in the belly thereof," because the atmosphere is the recipient,
and, as it were, the crucible of the solar rays, by means of
which there forms that living image of the sun which pene-
trates the whole earth, fructifies it, and determines all that
is produced at its surface by its emanations and permanent
currents, analogous to those of the sun itself. This solar
agent subsists by two contrary forces — one of attraction and
one of projection, whence Hermes says that it ascends and
descends eternally. The force of attraction is always fixed
at the centre of bodies, that of projection in their outlines or
at their surface. By this dual force all is created and all
preserved. Its motion is a rolling up and an unrolling
which is successive and indefinite, or, rather, simultaneous
and perpetual, by spirals of opposite movements which never
meet. It is the same movement as that of the sun, which
attracts and repels at once all the planets of its system.
To be acquainted with the movement of this terrestrial sun in
such a manner as to be able to take advantage of its currents
and direct them, is to have accomplished the great work and
to be master of the world. Armed with such a force you
may make yourself adored; the crowd will believe you are God.
The absolute secret of this direction has been in the
possession of certain men, and can yet be discovered. It is
the great magical arcanum, depending on an incommunicable
axiom and on an instrument which is the great and unique

54

THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

athanor of the highest grade of Hermetists. The incommuni-
cable axiom is kabbalistically enclosed in the four letters of
the tetragram arranged in the following manner : —

in the letters of the words AZOTH and INEl written kab-
balistically ; and in the monogram of Christ as embroidered
on the labarum, which the Kabbalist Postel interprets by
the word EOTA, whence the adepts have formed their Taro or
Tarot, by the repetition of the first letter, thus indicating the
circle, and suggesting that the word is put backwards. All
magical science is comprised in the knowledge of this secret.
To know it and have the courage to use it is human omnipo-
tence ; to reveal it to a profane person is to lose it ; to reveal
it even to a disciple is to abdicate in favour of that disciple,
who, henceforward, possesses the right of life and death over
his master — I am speaking from the magical standpoint —
and will certainly slay him for fear of dying himself. But
this has nothing in common with deeds qualified as murder
in criminal legislation ; the practical philosophy which is the
basis and point of departure for our laws does not recognise
the facts of bewitchment and of occult influences. We
touch here upon extraordinary revelations, and are prepared

THE TETRACRAM 55

for the unbelief and derision of incredulous fanaticism ;
voltairean religion has also its fanatics, pace the great shades
who must now be lurking sullenly in the vaults of the
Pantheon, while Catholicism, strong ever in its practices and
prestige, chants the office overhead.

The perfect word, that which is adequate to the thought
which it expresses, always virtually contains or supposes a
tetrad: the idea, with its three necessary and correlated
forms, then the image of the thing expressed, with the three
terms of the judgment which qualifies it. When I say :
" Being exists," I affirm implicitly that the void is non-
existent. A height, a breadth which the height sub-divides
longitudinally, a depth separated from the height by the
intersection of the breadth, such is the natural tetrad com-
posed of two lines at right angles one to another. Nature
also has four motions produced by two forces which sustain
each other by their tendency in an opposite direction. Now,
the law which rules bodies is analogous to that which governs
minds, and that which governs minds is the very manifesta-
tion of God's secret — that is to say, of the mystery of the
creation. Imagine a watch having two parallel springs, with
an engagement which makes them work in an opposite direc-
tion so that the one in unwinding winds up the other. In
this way, the watch will wind up itself, and you will have
discovered perpetual motion. The engagement should
be at two ends and of extreme accuracy. Is this beyond
attainment ? We think not. But when it is found out the
inventor will understand by analogy all the secrets of nature
— progress in direct proportion to the resistance. The absolute
movement of life is thus the perpetual consequence of two
contrary tendencies which are never opposed. When one
seems to yield to the other, it is a spring which is winding
up, and you may expect a reaction, the moment and
characteristics of which it is quite possible to foresee and
determine. Hence at the period of the most extreme Chris-
tian fervour was the reign of ANTICHRIST known and pre-
dicted. But Antichrist will prepare and determine the

56 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

second advent and final triumph of the Man-God. This
again is a vigorous and kabbalistical conclusion contained
in the Gospel premises. Hence the Christian prophecy com-
prises a fourfold revelation : 1. Fall of the old world and
triumph of the Gospel under the first advent; 2. Great
apostasy and coming of Antichrist; 3. Fall of Antichrist
and recurrence to Christian ideas ; 4. Definitive triumph of
the Gospel, or Second Advent, designated under the name of
the Last Judgment. This fourfold prophecy contains, as
will be seen, two affirmations and two negations, the idea
of two ruins or universal deaths and of two resurrections ;
for to every conception which appears upon the social
horizon an east and a west, a zenith and a nadir, may be
ascribed without fear of error. Thus is the philosophical
cross the key of prophecy, and all gates of science may be
opened with the pantacle of Ezekiel, the centre of which is
a star formed by the interlacement of two crosses.

Does not human life present itself also under these four
phases or successive transformations — birth, life, death, im-
mortality ? And remark here that the immortality of the
soul, necessitated as a complement of the tetrad, is kab-
balistically proved by analogy, which is the sole dogma of
truly universal religion, as it is the key of science and the
universal law of nature. As a fact, death can be no more
an absolute end than birth is a real beginning. Birth
proves the pre-existence of the human being, since nothing
is produced from nothing, and death proves immortality,
since being can no more cease to be being than nothingness
can cease to be nothingness. Being and nothingness are

THE TETRAGRAM 5*7

two absolutely irreconcileable ideas, with this difference, that
the idea of nothingness, which is altogether negative, issues
from the idea itself of being, whence nothingness cannot
even be understood as an absolute negation, whilst the
notion of being can never be referred to that of nothingness,
and still less can it come forth therefrom. To say that the
world has been produced out of nothing is to advance a
monstrous absurdity. All that is proceeds from what has
been, and consequently nothing that is can ever more cease
to be. The succession of forms is produced by the alterna-
tives of movement ; they are the phenomena of life which
replace one another without destroying themselves. All
things change ; nothing perishes. The sun does not die
when it vanishes from the horizon ; even the most fluidic
forms are immortal, subsisting always in the permanence of
their raison d'etre, which is the combination of the light
with the aggregated potences of the molecules of the first
substance. Hence they are preserved in the astral fluid,
and can be evoked and reproduced according to the will of
the sage, as we shall see when treating of second sight and
the evocation of memories in necromancy or other magical
works. We shall return to the great magical agent in the
fourth chapter of the Ritual, where we shall complete our
indications of the characteristics of the great arcanum, and
of the means of recovering this tremendous power.

Here let us add some words about the four magical
elements and elementary spirits. The magical elements are :
in alchemy, salt, sulphur, mercury, and azoth ; in Kabbalah,
the macroprosopus, the microprosopus, and the two mothers ;
in hieroglyphics, the man, eagle, lion, and bull ; in old
physics, according to vulgar names and notions, air, water,
earth, and fire. But in magical science we know that water
is not ordinary water, fire is not simply fire, &c. These
expressions conceal a more recondite meaning. Modern
science has decomposed the four elements of the ancients,
and reduced them to a number of so-called simple bodies.
That which is simple, however, is the primitive substance

58

THE DOCTRINE OP TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

properly so-called; there is therefore only one material
element, which always manifests by the tetrad in its forms.
We shall therefore preserve the wise distinction of element-
ary appearances admitted by the ancients, and shall recog-
nise air, fire, earth, and water as the four positive and visible
elements of magic.

The subtle and the gross, the swift and slow dissolvent,
or the instruments of heat and cold, constitute, in occult
physics, the two positive and negative principles of the
tetrad, and should be thus tabulated : —

Azoth.
Eagle.
Air.

Sulphur.

Lion.

Fire.

Mercury
i Man.
Water.

Salt.
Bull.
Earth.

Thus, air and earth represent the male principle ; fire and
water are referable to the female principle, since the philo-
sophical cross of pantacles, as already affirmed, is a primitive
and elementary hieroglyph of the lingam of the gymno-
sophists. To these four elementary forms correspond the
four following philosophical ideas — Spirit, Matter, Motion,
Rest. As a fact, all science is comprised in the understand-
ing of these four things, which alchemy has reduced to three
— the Absolute, the Fixed, and the Volatile — referred by
the Kabbalah to the essential idea of God, who is absolute
reason, necessity, and liberty, a threefold notion expressed
in the occult books of the Hebrews. Under the names of

n their power to
bh. To discover

53

THE TETRAGKAM

. ne world ; of
Kether, Chochmah, and Binah for the divi^ wQrld . and

Tiphereth, Chesed, and Geburah in the mor worldj ^hich,
of Jesod, Hod, and Netsah in the physical ie idea of thj
together with the moral, is contained in t|e tenth chapter
Kingdom or Malchuth, we shall explain in tr
this theogony as rational as it is sublime. mancipation by

Now, created spirits, being called to e^ege four
ordeal, are placed from their birth between t
two positive and two negative, and have it i
affirm or deny good, to choose life or deaf^e
the fixed point, that is, the fixed centre of^ve. ^~£ -niti"ai
first problem which is given them to resc ^ begin by
conquest must be that of their own libert^'^ sQuth . gome
being drawn, some to the north, others togQ far ag ^ are
to the right, others to the left ; and in ag(m nQr can they
not free, they cannot have the use of reg ^^ unemanci.
take flesh otherwise than in animal form! are thoge which the
pated spirits, slaves of the four elements/ ^ people the
kabbalists call elementary daimons, ajgtate of servitude.
elements which correspond to their I therefore really
Sylphs, undines, gnomes, and salaman^ &^ ^^ incar-
exist, some wandering and seeking izwaT vicious and imper-
nate and living on this earth. These i£. fc ^ ^ fifteenth
feet men. We shall return to this ~

chapter, which treats of enchantments which the andentg
That is also an occult tradition P affeg ^ the worMj
were led to admit the existence of ffV. that thege ageg
only it was not made known to the ^ four geagong of
were successive and were renewed, K dj and it is yet to
the year. Thus, the golden age hasl -rifc of prophecv> and
come. This, however, belongs to thT wMch ig concerned
we shall speak of it in the ninth djwe nQW add the idea of
with the initiate and the seer If ^ and separateiv>
unity to the tetrad we shall have and anal is> the god
the conceptions of the divine ByntH^ Here the doctrine
of the initiates and that of the pr<; frQm the domain of the
becomes more popular, and passer rveneg
abstract ; the grand hierophant irf

60

E DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

THE PENTAGEAM

GEBURAH ECCE

HEREUNTO we have

arid and abstract P°sed the ma^lcal d°Sma in its more
we can proclaim woises; n°W enchantments ^gin; now
The pentagram sio-nirs and reveal the most secret things-
the elements and by S the domination of the mind over
the air, the spirits oiis sign are enchained the demons of
ghosts of earth Equre' the Phantoms of the water> and
posed, you may beholcfd Wlth this sign> and suitably dis~
that faculty which is he mfimte through the medium of
ministered unto by le-i6 the soul>s e^e' and you wil1 be

And now, in the fint" °f ^ and ^ °f fiendS<
ciples. There is no i^CQ> let US establlsh certain Prin-
many degrees of perfec'sible W°rM; there are> however'

coarse and, as it were, 'm in 0^?' Th' ^ iS ^e
' le perishable cortex of the soul.

THE PENTAGRAM

The soul can perceive of itself, and independently of the
mediation of the physical organs, by means of its sensibility
and its diaphane, the things, both spiritual and corporal,
which are existent in the universe. Spiritual and corporal
are simply terms which express the degrees of tenuity or
density in substance. What is called the imagination
within us is only the soul's inherent faculty of assimilating
the images and reflections contained in the living light,
which is the great magnetic agent. These images and
reflections are revelations when science intervenes to reveal
us their body or light. The man of genius differs from the
dreamer and the fool in this only, that his creations are
analogous to truth, while those of the fool and the dreamer
are lost reflections and bewrayed images. Hence, for the
wise man, to imagine is to see, as, for the magician, to speak
is to create. Therefore, by means of the imagination,
demons and spirits can be beheld really and in truth ; but
the imagination of the adept is diaphanous, whilst that of
the crowd is opaque ; the light of truth traverses the one as
ordinary light passes through a transparent casement, and is
refracted by the other as when the ordinary light falls upon
a vitreous block full of scoria and foreign matter. That
which most contributes to the errors of the vulgar is the
reflection of depraved imaginations one in the other. But the
seer, by a positive science, knows that what he imagines is true,
and the event invariably confirms his vision. We shall state
in the Eitual after what manner this lucidity can be acquired.
It is by means of this light that static visionaries place
themselves in communication with all worlds, as so fre-
quently occurred to Swedenborg, who, notwithstanding,
was imperfectly lucid, seeing that he did not distinguish
reflections from rays, and often intermingled chimerical
fancies with his most admirable dreams. We say dreams,
because dream is the consequence of a natural and peri-
odical ecstasy, which we term sleep; to be in ecstasy
is to sleep ; magnetic somnambulism is a production
and direction of sleep. The errors which occur therein

.62 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

:are occasioned by reflections from the diaphane of waking
persons, and, above all, of the magnetiser. Dream is vision
produced by the refraction of a ray of truth. The chimerical
fantasy is hallucination occasioned by a reflection. The
temptation of St Anthony, with its nightmares and its
monsters, represents the confusion of reflections with direct
rays. So long as the soul struggles it is reasonable ; when
jt yields to this specie, of invading intoxication it becomes
mad. To disentangle the direct ray, and separate it from
the reflection — such is the work of the initiate. Here let
us state distinctly that this work is through all times
Accomplished in the world by some of the flower of
mankind, that there is hence a permanent revelation by
intuition, and that there is no insuperable barrier which
separates souls, because there are no sudden interruptions,
and no abrupt walls in nature by which minds can be
.divided from one another. All is transition and blending,
and, assuming the perfectibility, if not infinite, at least in-
definite, of human faculties, it will be seen that every person
.can attain to see all, and therefore to know all. There is
no void in nature ; all is peopled. There is no true death
in nature ; all is alive. " Seest thou that star ? " asked
Napoleon of Cardinal Fesch. " No, Sire." " I see it," said
the Emperor, and he most certainly did. When great men
.are accused of having been superstitious, it is because they
beheld what remains unseen by the crowd. Men of genius
differ from simple seers by their faculty of sensibly com-
Hinunicating to other men what they themselves perceive,
and of making themselves believed by the force of en-
thusiasm and sympathy. Such persons are the medium
of the Divine Word.

Let us now state the manner in which visions operate.
All forms correspond to ideas, and there is no idea which
has not its proper and peculiar form. The primordial light,
which is the vehicle of all ideas, is the mother of all forms,
and transmits them from emanation to emanation, merely
Diminished or modified according to the density of the

THE PENTAGRAM 63

media. Secondary forms are reflections which return to
the font of the emanated light. The forms of objects,
being a modification of light, remain in the light where
the reflection consigns them. Hence the astral light, or
terrestrial fluid, which we call the great magnetic agent, is
saturated with all kinds of images or reflections. Now, our
soul can evoke these, and refer them to its diaphane, as the
kabbalists term it. Such images are always present to us,
and are only effaced by the more powerful impressions of
reality during waking hours, or by preoccupation of the
mind, which makes our imagination inattentive to the fluidic
panorama of the astral light. When we sleep, this spectacle
presents itself spontaneously before us, and in this way
dreams are produced — dreams vague and incoherent if some
governing will do not remain active during the sleep, giving,
even unconsciously to our intelligence, a direction to the
dream, which then transforms into vision. Animal mag-
netism is nothing else but an artificial sleep produced by
the voluntary or enforced union of two wills, one of which
is awake while the other slumbers — that is, one of which
directs the other in the choice of reflections for the trans-
formation of dreams into visions, and the attainment of
truth by means of images. Thus, somnambulists do not
actually travel to the place where they are sent by the
magnetiser ; they evoke its images in the astral light, and
can behold nothing which does not exist in that light.
The astral light has a direct action on the nerves, which are
its conductors in the animal economy, transmitting it to
the brain, whence also, in the state of somnambulism, it is
possible to see by means of the nerves, without being
dependent on radiant light, the astral fluid being a latent
light, in the same way that physics recognise the existence
of a latent caloric.

Magnetism between two persons is certainly a wonderful
discovery, but the magnetising of a person by himself,
accomplishing his own lucidity and directing himself at
will, is the perfection of magical art. The secret of this

64 THE DOCTEINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

great work does not rest for discovery ; it has been known
and practised by a great number of initiates, above all by
the celebrated Apollonius of Tyana, who has left a theory
concerning it, as we shall see in the Eitual. The secret of
magnetic lucidity, and the direction of the phenomena of
magnetism depend on two things — the agreement of minds
and the complete union of wills, in a direction which is
possible and determined by science. This is for the opera-
tion of magnetism between two or more persons. Solitary
magnetism requires preparations of which we have spoken
in our initial chapter, when enumerating and establishing
in all their difficulty the essential qualities of a veritable
adept. In the following chapters we shall further elucidate
this important and fundamental point.

The empire of the will over the astral light, which is the
physical soul of the four elements, is represented in magic
by the pentagram, which we have set at the head of this
chapter. The elementary spirits are subservient to this
sign when employed with understanding, and, by placing it
in the circle or on the table of evocations, they can be
rendered tractable, which is magically called to imprison
them. Let us briefly explain this marvel. All created
beings communicate with one another by signs, and all
adhere to a certain number of truths expressed by deter-
minate forms. The perfection of forms increases in pro-
portion to the detachment of spirits, and those that are not
overweighted by the chains of matter, recognise by intuition
out of hand whether a sign is the expression of a real power or
of a precipitate will. The intelligence of the wise man there-
fore gives value to his pantacle, as science gives weight to his
will, and spirits comprehend this power immediately. Thus,
by means of the pentagram, spirits can be forced to appear
in vision, whether in the waking or sleeping state, by them-
selves leading before our diaphane their reflection, which exists
in the astral light, if they have lived, or a reflection analogous
to their spiritual logos if they have not lived on earth. This
explains all visions, and accounts for the dead invariably

THE PENTAGRAM 65

appearing to seers, either such as they were upon earth, or
such as they are in the grave, never as they subsist in a
condition which escapes the perceptions of our actual
organism.

Pregnant women are influenced more than others by the
astral light, which concurs in the formation of the child,
and perpetually offers them reminiscences of the forms
which abound therein. This explains how it is that women
of the highest virtue deceive the malignity of observers by
equivocal resemblances. On the fruit of their marriage
they impress frequently an image which has struck them
in dream, and it is thus that the same physiognomies are
perpetuated from generation to generation. The Kabbalistic
usage of the pentagram can therefore determine the appear-
ance of unborn children, and an initiated woman might
endow her son with the characteristics of Nero or Achilles
as much as with those of Louis XIV. or Napoleon. We
shall indicate the method in our Ritual.

The pentagram is called in Kabbalah the sign of the
microcosm, that sign so exalted by Goethe in the beautiful
monologue of Faust : " Ah, how do all my senses leap at
this sight ! I feel the young and sacred pleasure of life
bubbling in my nerves and veins. Was it a God who
traced this sign which stills the vertigo of my soul, fills
my poor heart with joy, and, in a mysterious rapture,
unveils the forces of nature around me. Am I myself a
God ! All is so clear to me ; I behold in these simple lines
the revelation of active nature to my soul. I realise for
the first time the truth of the wise man's words : The
world of spirits is not closed ! Thy sense is obtuse, thy
heart is dead ! Arise ! Bathe, 0 adept of science, thy
breast, still enveloped by an earthly veil, in the splendours
of the dawning day ! " (Faust, Part i. sc. 1).

On the 24th of July in the year 1854, the author of
this book, filiphas Levi, made experiments of evocation with
the pentagram, after due preparation by all the ceremonies
which are indicated in the thirteenth chapter of the Kitual.

66 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

The success of this experiment, details of which, as regards
its principles, will be found in the corresponding chapter of
this our doctrinal part, establishes a new pathological fact,
which men of true science will admit without difficulty.
The repeated experience, in all three times, gave results
truly extraordinary, but positive and unmixed with halluci-
nation. We invite sceptics to make a conscientious and
intelligent attempt before shrugging their shoulders and
smiling. The figure of the pentagram, perfected in accord-
ance with science, and used by the author in his experiment,
is that which is found at the head of this chapter, and it is

more perfect than any in the keys of Solomon, or in the
magical calendars of Tycho Brahe and Duchentau. We
must, however, remark that the use of the pentagram is
most dangerous for operators who are not in possession
of its complete and perfect understanding. The direction of
the points of the star is in no sense arbitrary, and may
change the entire character of the operation, as we shall
explain in the Eitual.

Paracelsus, that innovator in magic, who surpassed all
other initiates in his unaided practical success, affirms that
every magical figure and every kabbalistic sign of the pan-
tacles which compel spirits, may be reduced to two, which
are the synthesis of all the others ; these are the sign of the

the t
tion

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 67

m or the seal of Solomon, the form of which we
given, and now reproduce here, and that of the
^rjn, more potent even than the first — that is to say,
, 1CrCieiroram' °f which he provides a most minute descrip-
tis occult philosophy. If it be asked how a sign

so much power over spirits, we inquire in
can % riy the whole Christian world bows down before the
retunyt]le cross ? rpne sjgn jg nothing by itself, and has no
S18n ipart from the doctrine of which it is the summary
logos. Now, a sign which sums, by their ex-
on, all the occult forces of nature, a sign which has
Pres exhibited to elementary spirits and others a power
everr than their own, naturally fills them with respect and
§rea!nd enforces their obedience by the empire of science
fear,f w^j over jgnorance and weakness. By the penta-
an(* also is measured the exact proportions of the great
§ranQique athanor necessary to the confection of the philo-
anc* al stone and the accomplishment of the great work.
SOP* lost perfect alembic in which the quintessence can be
is conformable to this figure, and the quintessence

represented by the sign of the pentagram.

itself

6 1 D
MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM

TIPHEKETH UNCUS

E intelligence is necessarily reasonable. God, in
, may be only a hypothesis, but he is a hypo-
aposed by good sense on human reason. To personify
ie Reason is to determine the divine ideal.
y, liberty, and reason — these are the great and
C13 triangle of the Kabbalists, who name reason

suPrf necessity Chochmah, and liberty Binah, in their first
Keti

the

68 THE DOCTEINE OF TRANSCEx \T MAG . ,

iagical

divine triad. Fatality, will, and power, ^h it .

triad, which corresponds in things human >c° £he,.

\c IiQ'enc
Fatality is the inevitable sequence of effecr ^c, ,-,

determined order. Will is the directing facif* *& .,,
forces for the conciliation of the liberty of pf '. ,,
necessity of things. Power is the wise appli^ ,. ,
which enlists fatality itself in the accomplish -,
desires of the sage. When Moses smote the^,, , '
not create the spring of water, he revealed it tli «
because occult science had made it known tc ,,
means of the divining rod. It is in like mar
miracles of magic ; a law exists, which is igi ,
vulgar and made use of by the initiate. Occ i
often diametrically opposed to common ideas. '.. , ,
the crowd believes in the sympathy of thine, , , ,
alike and in the hostility of things contrary, 1 ,
opposite which is the true law. It used to be '
nature detests the void, but it should be said , ,
desires it, were the void not, in physics, the m<^ ,
of fictions. In all things the vulgar mind hat «
shadow for reality, turns its back upon light, ar
in the obscurity which it projects itself. 3
nature are at the disposal of one who knows 1, . , ,
them. Are you master sufficiently of yourseli , ,
intoxicated ? Then will you direct the terri , o1r '
power of intoxication. If you would maker; . , _
possess them with the desire of drink, but d ,
of it yourself. That man will dispose of theun ; ,
who is master of his own. If you would j
give. The world is magnetised by the light OL ^
we are magnetised by the astral light of the
which operates in the body of the planet rej
us. Within us there are three analogical £ ,. ,
worlds, as in all nature. it ^^

Man is the microcosm or little world, ant centres
the doctrine of analogies, whatsoever is in th
is reproduced in the small. Hence we have

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 69

of fluidic attraction and projection — the brain, the heart or
epigastric region, and the genital organ. Each of these in-
struments is double — in other words, we find the suggestion
of the triad therein. Each attracts on one side and repels
on another. It is by means of these apparatuses that we
place ourselves in communication with the universal fluid
transmitted into us by the nervous system. These three
centres are, moreover, the seat of the threefold magnetic
operation, as we shall explain elsewhere. When the magus
has attained lucidity, whether through the mediation of a
pythoness, or by his own development, he communicates and
directs at will the magnetic vibrations in the whole mass of
the astral light, the currents of which he divines by means
of the magic rod, which is a perfected divining rod. By
the aid of these vibrations he influences the nervous system
of persons surrendered to his action, accelerates or suspends
the currents of life, soothes or tortures, heals or hurts ; in
fine, slays or brings to life. . . . Here, however, we pause in
presence of the smile of incredulity. Let us permit it to
enjoy the cheap triumph of denying what it does not know.
We shall demonstrate later on that death is always pre-
ceded by a lethargic sleep, and only takes place gradually ;
that resurrection is possible in certain cases ; that lethargy
is a real, but uncompleted, death ; and that the final paroxysm
is in many cases subsequent to inhumation. This, how-
ever, is not the subject of the present chapter. We now
affirm that a lucid will can act upon the mass of the astral
light, and, in concurrence with other wills, which it absorbs
and draws along, can determine great and irresistible cur-
rents. We say also that the astral light condenses or
rarefies in proportion as currents accumulate, more or less,
at certain centres. When it is deficient in the energy
required for the support of life, diseases accompanied by
sudden decomposition follow, of the kind which baffle
physicians. There is no other cause, by example, in the
case of cholera-morbus, and the swarms of animalcule
observed or supposed by some specialists may be the effect

70 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

rather than the cause. Cholera should therefore be treated
by insufflation, did not the operator thereby run the chance
of an exchange with the patient, which would be very for-
midable for himself. Every intelligent effort of will is a
projection of the human fluid or light, and here it is need-
ful to distinguish the human from the astral light, and
animal from universal magnetism. In making use of the
word fluid, we employ an accepted expression, and would
make ourselves understood in this manner, but we are far
from deciding that the latent light is a fluid. Everything
prompts us, on the contrary, to prefer the system of vibra-
tions in the explanation of this phenomenal subject. How-
ever it may be, the light in question, being the instrument
of life, cleaves naturally to all living centres, attaches itself
to the nucleus of planets, even as to the heart of man — and
by the heart we understand magically the great sympathetic
— identifying itself with the individual life of the being which
it animates, and it is by this quality of sympathetic assimi-
lation that it distributes itself without confusion. Hence it
is terrestrial in its affinity with the sphere of the earth, and
human exclusively in its affinity with men.

It is for this reason that electricity, caloric, light, and
magnetism, produced by ordinary physical means, not only
do not originate, but rather tend to neutralise the effects of
animal magnetism. The astral light, subordinated to a
blind mechanism, and proceeding from arbitrary automatic
centres, is a dead light, and works mathematically, follow-
ing given impulsions or fatal laws ; the human light is fatal
only to the ignorant in chance experiments ; in the seer it
is subjected to intelligence, submitted to imagination, and
dependent on will. This light, continually projected by the
will, constitutes the personal atmospheres of Swedenborg.
The body absorbs what environs it, and radiates perpetually
by projecting its influences and invisible molecules ; it is the
same with the spirit, so that this phenomenon, by some
mystics termed respiration, has really the influence, both
physical and moral, which is assigned to it. It is un-

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 71

doubtedly contagious to breathe the same air as diseased
persons, and to be within the circle of attraction and ex-
pansion which surrounds the wicked.

When the magnetic atmosphere of two persons is so equili-
brated that the attractive faculty of one draws the expansive
faculty of the other, a tendency is produced which is termed
sympathy ; then imagination, calling up to it all the rays or
reflections analogous to that which it experiences, makes a
poem of the desires which captivate the will, and, if the
persons differ in sex, it occasions in them, or more commonly
in the weaker of the two, a complete intoxication of the
astral light, which is termed passion par excellence, or love.
Love is one of the great instruments of magical power, but
it is categorically forbidden to the magus, at least as an
intoxication or passion. Woe to the Samson of the Kab-
balah if he permit himself to be put asleep by Delilah !
The Hercules of science, who exchanges his royal sceptre
for the distaff of Omphale, will soon experience the venge-
ance of Dejanira, and nothing will be left for him but the
pyre of Mount (Eta*, in order to escape the devouring folds
of the coat of Nessus. Sexual love is ever an illusion, for
it is the result of an imaginary mirage. The astral light is
the universal seducer, typified by the serpent of Genesis.
This subtle agent, ever active, ever abounding in sap, ever
fruitful in alluring dreams and sensuous images ; this force,
which by itself is blind and subordinated to every will,
whether for good or evil ; this every renewing circulus of
unbridled life, which produces vertigo in the imprudent ;
this corporal spirit ; this fiery body ; this impalpable omni-
present ether; this monstrous seduction of nature — how
shall we define it comprehensively and how characterise its
action ? To some extent indifferent in itself, it lends itself
to good as to evil ; it transmits light and propagates dark-
ness ; it may be called equally Lucifer and Lucifuge ; it is
a serpent but it is also an aureole ; it is a fire, but it may
belong equally to the torments of infernus, or to the sacri-
fice of incense offered up to heaven. To dispose of it, we

72 THE DOCTRINE OF TEANSCENDENT MAGIC

must, like the predestined women, set our foot upon its
head.

In the elementary world water corresponds to the kabba-
listic woman and fire to the serpent. To subdue the serpent,
that is, to govern the circle of the astral light, we must place
ourselves outside its currents, that is, we must isolate our-
selves. Tor this reason Apollonius of Tyana wrapped him-
self completely in a mantle of fine wool, setting his feet
thereon and drawing it over his head. Then he bent his
back in semi-circular fashion, and closed his eyes, after
fulfilling certain rites, probably magnetic passes and sacra-
mental words designed to fix the imagination and determine
the action of the will. The woollen mantle is of great use
in magic, and was the common conveyance of sorcerers on
their way to the Sabbath, which proves that the sorcerers
did not really go to the Sabbath, but the Sabbath came to
the sorcerers, when isolated in their mantle, and conducted
to their translucid images analogous to their magical pre-
occupations, combined with reflections of all kindred acts
previously accomplished in the world.

This torrent of universal life is also represented in religious
doctrines by the expiatory fire of hell. It is the instrument
of initiation, the monster to be overcome, the enemy to
subdue; it is this which brings to our evocations and to
the conjurations of goe'tic magic such swarms of Iarva3 and
phantoms ; therein are preserved all the forms which by
their fantastic and fortuitous assemblage people our night-
mares with such abominable deformities. To allow ourselves
to be sucked down by this whirling stream is to fall into the
abysses of madness, more frightful than those of death ; to
expel the darkness of this chaos and force it to give perfect
forms to our thoughts — this is, to be a man of genius, it is
to create, it is to be victorious over hell ! The astral light
directs the instincts of animals and offers battle to the in-
telligence of man, which it strives to pervert by the entice-
ments of its reflections, and the illusion of its images, a fatal
and inevitable operation, directed and made still more

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 73

calamitous by the elementary spirits and suffering souls,
whose restless wills seek out sympathies in our weakness,
and tempt us not so much to destroy us as to win friends
for themselves.

That book of consciences which, according to Christian
doctrine, shall be opened at the last day, is no other than
the astral light, which preserves the impress of every logos,
that is to say, of all actions and all forms. Our acts
modify our magnetic respiration in such a way that a seer,
meeting any person for the first time, can tell whether that
person is innocent or criminal, and what are his virtues or
his crimes. This faculty, which belongs to divination, was
called by the Christian mystics of the early Church the
discernment of spirits.

Those who abdicate the empire of reason and delight to
let their wills wander in pursuit of the reflections in the
astral light, are subject to alternations of mania and melan-
choly which have originated all the marvels of demoniacal
possession, though it is true, at the same time, that by
means of these reflections impure spirits can act upon similar
souls, make ust of them as docile instruments, and even
habitually torment their organism, wherein they enter and
reside by obsession, or embryonically. These kabbalistic
terms are explained in the Hebrew book of the Eevolution
of Souls, of which our thirteenth chapter will contain a
succinct analysis. It is therefore extremely dangerous to
make sport of the mysteries of magic ; it is, above all, ex-
cessively rash to practise its rites from curiosity, by experi-
ment, and as if to exploit higher forces. The inquisitive
who, without being adepts, busy themselves with evocations
or occult magnetism, are like children playing with fire in the
neighbourhood of a cask of gunpowder ; sooner or later they
will fall victims to some terrible explosion.

To be isolated from the astral light it is not enough to
envelop one's self in a woollen fabric ; we must also, and
above all, impose absolute tranquillity on mind and heart, we
must have quitted the world of passions and be assured of

74 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

perseverance in the spontaneous operations of an inflexible
will. We must frequently reiterate the acts of this will,
for, as we shall see in the introduction to the Eitual, the
will only assures itself by acts, as the power and perpetuity
of religions depend on their rites and ceremonies.

There are intoxicating substances, which, by increasing
nervous sensibility, exalt the power and consequently the
allurements of astral representations; by the same means,
but pursuing a contrary course, spirits may be alarmed and
disturbed. These substances, of themselves magnetic, and
further magnetised by the operators, are what people term
philters and enchanted potions. But we shall not enter
here upon this dangerous application of magic, which
Cornelius Agrippa himself terms venomous magic. It is
true that there are no longer pyres for sorcerers, but always,
and more than ever, are there penalties dealt out to male-
factors. Let us confine ourselves therefore to stating, as the
occasion offers, the reality of this power.

To direct the astral light we must understand also its
double vibration, as well as the balance of forces termed
magical equilibrium and expressed in the Kabbalah by the
senary. Considered in its first cause, this equilibrium is the
will of God ; it is liberty in man, and mathematical equili-
brium in matter. Equilibrium produces stability and
duration. Liberty generates the immortality of man, and
the will of God gives effect to the laws of eternal reason.
Equilibrium in ideas is reason and in forces power. Equili-
brium is exact ; fulfil its law, and it is there ; violate it,
however slightly, and it is destroyed. For this reason
nothing is useless or lost. Every utterance and every
movement are for or against truth, which is composed of for
and against conciliated, or at least equilibrated. We shall
state in the introduction to the Eitual how magical equili-
brium should be produced, and why it is necessary to the
success of all operations.

Omnipotence is the most absolute liberty ; now, absolute
liberty cannot exist apart from perfect equilibrium. Magical

THE FIERY SWORD 75

equilibrium is hence one of the first conditions of success in
the operations of science, and must be sought even in occult
chemistry, by learning to combine contraries without
neutralising them by one another. Magical equilibrium
explains the great and primeval mystery of the existence
and relative necessity of evil. This relative necessity gives,
in black magic, the measure of the power of demons or
impure spirits, to whom virtues practised upon earth are a
source of increased rage and apparently of increased power.
At the epochs when saints and angels work miracles openly,
sorcerers and fiends in their turn operate marvels and pro-
digies. Eivalry often creates success; we lean upon that
which resists.

THE FIEKY SWOED

NETSAH GLADIUS

THE septenary is the sacred number in all theogonies and in
all symbols, because it is composed of the triad and the
tetrad. The number seven represents magical power in all
its fulness ; it is the mind reinforced by all elementary
potencies ; it is the soul served by nature ; it is the sanctum
regnum mentioned in the keys of Solomon, and represented
in the Tarot by a crowned warrior, who bears a triangle on
his cuirass, and is posed upon a cube, to which two sphinxes
are harnessed, straining in opposite directions, while their
heads are turned the same way. This warrior is armed with
a fiery sword, and holds in his other hand, a sceptre sur-
mounted by a triangle and a sphere. The cube is the
philosophical stone ; the sphinxes are the two forces of the
great agent, corresponding to Jakin and Bohas, the two

76 THE DOCTKINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

pillars of the temple; the cuirass is the knowledge of
divine things, which renders the wise man invulnerable to
human assaults ; the sceptre is the magic rod ; the fiery
sword is the symbol of victory over the deadly sins,
seven in number, like the virtues, the conceptions of both
being typified by the ancients under the figures of the seven
planets then known. Thus, faith — that aspiration towards
the infinite, that noble self-reliance sustained by confidence
in all virtues — that faith, which, in weak natures, may de-
generate into pride, was represented by the Sun ; hope, the
enemy of avarice, by the Moon ; charity, in opposition to
luxury, by Venus, the bright star of the morning and
evening ; strength, superior to wrath, by Mars ; prudence,
hostile to idleness, by Mercury; temperance, opposed to
gluttony, by Saturn, who was given a stone instead of his
children to devour ; finally, justice, in opposition to envy,
by Jupiter, the conqueror of the Titans. Such are the
symbols borrowed by astronomy from the Hellenic cultus.
In the Kabbalah of the Hebrews, the Sun represents the
angel of light ; the Moon, the angel of aspirations and
dreams ; Mars, the destroying angel ; Mercury, the angel
of progress ; Jupiter, the angel of power ; Saturn, the
angel of the wilderness. They were named Michael,
Gabriel, Samael, Anael, Raphael, Zachariel, and Orifiel.

These governing potencies of souls shared human life in
periods, which astrologers measured by the revolutions of
the corresponding planets. But kabbalistic astrology must
not be confounded with judicial astrology. We will explain
this distinction. Infancy is dedicated to the Sun, childhood
to the Moon, youth to Mars and Venus, manhood to Mercury,
ripe age to Jupiter, and old age to Saturn. Now, humanity
in general subsists under laws of development analogous to
those of individual life. On this groundwork Trithemius
establishes his prophetic key of the seven spirits, to which
we shall subsequently refer ; by means thereof, observing the
analogical proportions of successive events, it is possible to
predict important future occurrences with certitude, and to fix

THE FIERY SWORD 77

beforehand, from age to age, the destinies of nations and the
world. St John, depositary of the secret doctrine of Christ,
has introduced it into the kabbalistic book of the Apoca-
lypse, which he represents sealed with seven seals. We
there find the seven genii of ancient mythologies, with the
cups and swords of the Tarot. The doctrine concealed
under these emblems is the pure Kabbalah, already lost by
the Pharisees at the time of Christ's advent. The scenes
which succeed one another in this wonderful prophetic epic
are so many pantacles, the keys of which are the ternary,
the quaternary, the septenary, and the duodenary. Its
hieroglyphic figures are analogous to those of the book of
Hermes or the Genesis of Enoch, to make use of a tentative
title which expresses merely the personal opinion of the
erudite William Postel.

The cherub, or symbolic bull, which Moses placed at the
gate of the edenic world, bearing a fiery sword, is a sphinx,
having a bull's body and a human head ; it is the antique
Assyrian sphinx, and the combat and victory of Mithras
were its hieroglyphic analysis. Now, this armed sphinx
represents the law of mystery which watches at the door of
initiation to warn away the profane. Voltaire, who knew
nothing of all this, was highly diverted at the notion of a
bull brandishing a sword. What would he have said had he
visited the ruins of Memphis and Thebes, and what would
the echo of past ages which slumbers in the tombs of
Barneses have replied to those light sarcasms so much
relished in France ? The Mosaic cherub represents also the
great magical mystery, of which the elements are expressed
by the septenary, without, however, giving the final word.
This verbum inenarrabile of the sages of the Alexandrian
school, this word which Hebrew Kabbalists write mrr and
interpret by xm&OK, thus expressing the triplicity of the
secondary principle, the dualism of the means, and the equal
unity of the first and final principle, then further the alli-
ance between the triad and the tetrad in a word composed
of four letters, which form seven by means of a

78 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

triple and double repetition — this word is pronounced
Ararita.

The virtue of the septenary is absolute in magic, for the
number is decisive in all things; hence all religions have
consecrated it in their rites. The seventh year was a jubilee
among the Jews ; the seventh day is set apart for rest and
prayer ; there are seven sacraments, &c. The seven colours
of the prism and the seven musical notes, correspond also to the
seven planets of the ancients, that is, to the seven chords of
the human lyre. The spiritual heaven has never changed,
and astrology has been more invariable than astronomy.
The seven planets are, in fact, the hieroglyphic symbols of
the key of our affections. To compose talismans of the
Sun, Moon, or Saturn, is to attach the will magnetically to
signs corresponding to the chief powers of the soul ; to con-
secrate something to Mercury or Venus is to magnetise that
object according to a direct intention, whether pleasure,
science, or profit be the end in view. The analogous metals,
animals, plants, and perfumes are auxiliaries to this end.
The seven magical animals are : — (a) Among birds, corre-
sponding to the divine world, the swan, the owl, the vulture,
the dove, the stork, the eagle, and the pewit ; (6) among
fish, corresponding to the spiritual or scientific world, the
seal, the cat-fish, the pike, the mullet, the chub, the dolphin,
the sepia or cuttle-fish ; (c) among quadrupeds, corresponding
to the natural world, the lion, the cat, the wolf, the he-goat,
the monkey, the stag, and the mole. The blood, fat, liver,
and gall of these animals serve in enchantments ; their brain
.combines with the perfumes of the planets, and it is recog-
nised by ancient practice that they possess magnetic virtues
corresponding to the seven planetary influences.

The talismans of the seven spirits are engraved either on
precious stones, such as the carbuncle, crystal, diamond,
emerald, agate, sapphire, and onyx; or upon metals, such
as gold, silver, iron, copper, fixed mercury, pewter, and lead.
The kabbalistic signs of the seven spirits are : — for the Sun,
a serpent with the head of a lion ; for the Moon, a globe

REALISATION 79

divided by two crescents ; for Mars, a dragon biting the hilt
of a sword ; for Venus, a lingam ; for Mercury, the Her-
metic caduceus and the cynocephalus ; for Jupiter, the
blazing pentagram in the talons or beak of an eagle; for
Saturn, a lame and aged man, or a serpent curled about the
sun-stone. All these symbols are found on the graven
stones of the ancients, and especially on those talismans of
the Gnostic epochs which are known by the name of Abraxas.
In the collection of the talismans of Paracelsus, Jupiter is
represented by a priest in ecclesiastical costume, while in the
Tarot he appears as a grand hierophant crowned with a
triple tiara, holding a three-fold cross in his hands, forming
the magical triangle, and representing at once the sceptre
and key of the three worlds.

By combining all that we have said about the unity of
the triad and tetrad, we shall find all that remains for us to
say concerning the septenary, that grand and complete
magical unity composed of four and three.*

8 n H
KEALISATION

HOD VIVENS

CAUSES manifest by effects, and effects are proportioned to
causes. The divine word, the one word, the tetragram, has
irmed itself by tetradic creation. Human fecundity proves

livine fecundity ; the jod of the divine name is the eternal
virility of the First Principle. Man understands that he

ras made in the image of God when he attains comprehen-

* With reference to the plants and colours of the septenary employed in
letic experiences, see the erudite work of M. Ragon on La Haqonnerie

80 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

sion of God by increasing to infinity the idea which he forms
of himself. When realising God as the infinite man, man
says unto himself : I am the finite God. Magic differs from
mysticism because it judges nothing & priori until after it
has established CL posteriori the base itself of its judgments,
that is to say, after having understood the cause by the
effects contained in the very energy of the cause, by means
of the universal law of analogy. Hence in the occult
sciences all is real, and theories are established only on the
foundations of experience. Eealities alone constitute the
proportions of the ideal, and the magus admits nothing as
certain in the domain of ideas save that which is demonstrated
by realisation. In other words, what is true in the cause
manifests in the effect. What is not realised does not exist.
The realisation of speech is the logos properly so called. A
thought realises itself in becoming speech ; it realises itself
also by signs, sounds, and representations of signs : this is
the first degree of realisation. Then it is imprinted on the
astral light by means of the signs of writing or speech ; it
influences other minds by reflection upon them ; it is re-
fracted by crossing the diaphane of other men ; it assumes
new forms and proportions ; it is then translated into acts
and modifies the world : this is the last degree of realisation.
Men who are born into a world modified by an idea bear
away with them the impression thereof, and it is thus that
the word is made flesh. The impression of the disobedience
of Adam, preserved in the astral light, could only be effaced
by the stronger impression of the obedience of the Saviour,
and thus the original sin and redemption of the world can
be explained in a natural and magical sense. The astral
light, or soul of the world, was the instrument of Adam's
omnipotence ; it became afterwards the instrument of his
punishment, being corrupted and troubled by his sin, which
intermingled an impure reflection with those primitive
images which composed the book of universal science for his
still virgin imagination.

The astral light, depicted in ancient symbols by the

REALISATION 81

serpent devouring his tail, represents alternately malice
and prudence, time and eternity, tempter and Redeemer ;
for this light, being the vehicle of life, is an auxiliary alike
of good and evil, and may be taken for the fiery form of
Satan as for the body of the Holy Ghost. It is the instru-
ment of warfare in angelic battles, and indifferently feeds
the flames of hell and the lightnings of St Michael. It
may be compared to a horse having a nature analogous to
the chameleon, and ever reflecting the armour of his
rider. The astral light is the realisation or form of the
intellectual light, as the latter is the realisation or form of
the divine light.

The great initiator of Christianity, divining that the
astral light was overcharged with the impure reflections of
Roman debauchery, sought to separate his disciples from
the ambient sphere of reflections, and to make them at-
tentive only to the interior light, so that, through the
medium of a common faith and enthusiasm, they might
communicate together by new magnetic chains, which he
termed grace, and thus overcome the dissolute currents,
to which he gave the names of the devil and Satan,
signifying their putrefaction. To oppose current to current
is to renew the power of fluidic life. The revealers have,
therefore, scarcely done more than divine, by the accuracy
of their calculations, the appropriate moment for moral
reactions. The law of realisation produces what we call
magnetic breathing ; places and objects become impregnated
therewith, and this communicates to them an influence in
conformity with our dominant desires, with those, above all,
which are confirmed and realised by acts. As a fact, the
universal agent, or latent astral light, ever seeks equilibrium ;
it fills the void and sucks up the plenitude, which makes
vice contagious, like certain physical maladies, and works
powerfully in the proselytism of virtue. Hence it is that
cohabitation with antipathetic beings is a torment ; hence it
is that relics, whether of saints or of great criminals, pro-
duce the extraordinary results of sudden conversion and

F

82 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

perversion ; hence it is that sexual love is often awakened
by a breath or a touch, and this, not only by means of the
contact of the person himself, but of objects which he has
unconsciously touched or magnetised.

There is an outbreathing and inbreathing of the soul,
exactly like that of the body. It breathes in the felicity
which it believes, and it breathes forth ideas which result
from its inner sensations. Diseased souls have an evil
breath, and vitiate their moral atmosphere — that is, they
combine impure reflections with the astral light which per-
meates them, and establish unwholesome currents therein.
We are often invaded, to our astonishment, in society by
evil thoughts which would have seemed impossible, and are
not aware that they are due to some morbid proximity.
This secret is of high importance, for it leads to the open-
ing of consciences, one of the most incontestible and terrible
powers of magical art. Magnetic respiration produces about
the soul a radiation of which it is the centre, and surrounds
it with the reflection of its works, creating for it a heaven
or a hell. There are no isolated acts, and it is impossible
that there should be secret acts; whatsoever we truly will
— that is, everything which we confirm by our acts — re-
mains registered in the astral light, where our reflections
are preserved. These reflections continually influence our
thought by the mediation of the diaphane, and it is in this
sense that we become and remain the children of our
works.

The astral light, transformed at the moment of conception
into human light, is the soul's first envelope, and, in com-
bination with extremely subtle fluids, it forms the ethereal
body or sidereal phantom, of which Paracelsus discourses in
his philosophy of intuition — philosophia sagax. This sidereal
body, setting itself free at death, attracts, and for a long
time preserves, through the sympathy of things homogeneous,
the reflections of the past life; if drawn along a special
current by a will which is powerfully sympathetic, it mani-
fests naturally, for there is nothing more natural than

REALISATION 83

prodigies. It is thus apparitions are produced. But we
shall develop this point more fully in the chapter devoted
to Necromancy. This fluidic body, subject, like the mass of
the astral light, to two contrary movements, attracting on
the left and repelling on the right, or reciprocally, between
the two sexes, begets various impulses within us, and con-
tributes to solicitudes of conscience; it is frequently in-
fluenced by reflections of other minds, and thus are produced,
on the one hand, temptations, and, on the other, profound
and unexpected graces. This is also the explanation of the
traditional doctrine of two angels who strengthen and tempt
us. The two forces of the astral light may be represented
by a balance wherein are weighed our good intentions
for the triumph of justice and the emancipation of our
liberty.

The astral body is not always of the same sex as the
terrestial, that is, the proportions of the two forces, varying
from right to left, frequently seem to gainsay the visible
organisation, producing the seeming vagaries of human
passions, and explaining, without in any sense morally
justifying, the amorous peculiarities of Anacreon or
Sappho. A skilful magnetiser should take all these subtle
distinctions into account, and we shall provide in our Ritual
the rules for their recognition.

There are two kinds of realisation, the true and the
fantastic. The first is the exclusive secret of magicians, the
other belongs to enchanters and sorcerers. Mythologies are
fantastic realisations of religious dogma ; superstitions are
the sorcery of mistaken piety; but even mythologies and
superstitions are more efficacious with human will than a
purely speculative philosophy apart from any practice.
Hence St Paul opposes the conquests of the folly of the
Cross to the inertness of human wisdom. Eeligion realises
philosophy by adapting it to the weaknesses of the vulgar ;
such is for Kabbalists the secret reason and occult explana-
tion of the doctrines of incarnation and redemption.

Thoughts untranslated into speech are thoughts lost for

84 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

humanity ; words unconfirmed by acts are idle words, and
the idle word is not far removed from falsehood. Thought
formulated by speech and confirmed by acts constitutes a
good work or a crime. Hence, whether in vice or virtue,
there is no speech for which we are not responsible ; above
all, there are no indifferent acts. Curses and blessings
invariably produce their consequence, and every action,
whatsoever its nature, whether inspired by love or hate, has
effects analogous to its motive, its extent, and its direction.
When that emperor whose images had been mutilated,
raising his hand to his face, exclaimed, " I do not feel that
I am injured," he was mistaken in his valuation, and
thereby detracted from the merit of his clemency. What
man of honour could behold undisturbed an insult offered to
his portrait ? And did such insults, inflicted even unknown
to ourselves, react on us by a fatal influence, were the effects
of bewitchment actual, as indeed an adept cannot doubt,
how much more imprudent and ill-advised would seem this
utterance of the good emperor !

There are persons whom we can never offend with
impunity, and if the injury we have done them is mortal,
we forthwith begin to die. There are those also whom we
never meet in vain, whose mere glance alters the direction
of our life. The basilisk who slays by a look is no fable ;
it is a magical allegory. Generally speaking, it is bad for
health to have enemies, and we can never brave with
impunity the reprobation of anyone. Before opposing our-
selves to a given force or current, we must be well assured
that we possess the contrary force, or are with the stream
of the contrary current ; otherwise, we shall be crushed or
struck down, and many sudden deaths have no other cause
than this. The terrible visitations of Nadab and Abiu, of
Osa, of Ananias and Saphira, were occasioned by electric
currents of outraged convictions ; the sufferings of the
Ursulines of Londun, of the nuns of Louviers, and of the
convulsionaries of Jansenism, were identical in principle,
and are explicable by the same occult natural laws. Had

REALISATION 85

not Urban Grandier been immolated, one of two things
would have occurred — either the possessed nuns would have
died in frightful convulsions, or the phenomena of diabolical
frenzy would have so gained in strength and in influence, epi-
demically, that Grandier, notwithstanding his knowledge and
his reason, would himself have become hallucinated, and to
such a degree that he would have slandered himself, like the
unhappy Gaufridy, or would otherwise have perished sud-
denly, with all the appalling characteristics of poisoning or
of divine vengeance. In the eighteenth century the unfor-
tunate poet Gilbert fell a victim to his audacity in braving
the current of opinion and actual philosophical fanaticism
which characterised his epoch. Guilty of philosophical
treason, he died raving mad, possessed by the most in-
credible terrors, as if God himself had punished him for
defending his cause out of season. As a fact, he perished
by reason of a law of nature of which he could know
nothing ; he set himself against an electric current, and was
struck down as by lightning. Had Marat not been assassi-
nated by Charlotte Corday, he would have been destroyed
infallibly by a reaction of public opinion. It was the
execration of the honest which afflicted him with leprosy,
and he would have had to succumb thereto. The reproba-
tion excited by the massacre of St Bartholomew was the
sole cause of the atrocious disease and death of Charles IX.,
while, had not Henry IV. been sustained by an immense
popularity, which he owed to the projecting power or
sympathetic force of his astral life, he would scarcely have
outlived his conversion, but would have perished under the
contempt of Protestants, combined with the suspicion and
ill-will of Catholics. Unpopularity may be a proof of
integrity and courage, but never of policy or prudence ; the
wounds inflicted by opinion are mortal for statesmen. We
may recall the premature and violent end of many illus-
trious persons whom it would be inexpedient to mention
here. Disgraces in public opinion may often be great
injustices, but none the less they are invariably occasions of

86 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ill- success, and frequently of a death-sentence. In return,
acts of injustice done to one individual can and should, if
they rest unrepaired, cause the loss of an entire nation or of
a whole society ; this is what is called the cry of blood, for
at the bottom of every injustice there is the germ of homi-
cide. By reason of these terrible laws of solidarity,
Christianity recommends so strongly the forgiveness of
injuries and reconciliation. He who dies unforgiving casts
himself dagger-armed into eternity, and condemns himself
to the horrors of an eternal murder. The efficacy of paternal
or maternal blessings or curses is an invincible popular
tradition and belief. As a fact, the closer the bonds which
unite two persons, the more terrible are the consequences of
hatred between them. The brand of Althaea burning the
blood of Meleager is the mythological symbol of this terrible
power. Let parents be ever on their guard, for no one can
kindle hell in his own blood, and devote his own issue to
misfortune, without being himself burnt and made wretched.
To pardon is never a crime, but to curse is always a danger
and an evil action.

9 t3 I
INITIATION

JESOD BONUM

THE initiate is he who possesses the lamp of Trisrnegistus,
the mantle of Apollonius, and the staff of the patriarchs.
The lamp of Trismegistus is reason illuminated by science ;
the mantle of Apollonius is full and complete self-possession,
which isolates the sage from blind tendencies ; and the staff
of the patriarchs is the help of the secret and everlasting
forces of nature. The lamp of Trismegistus enlightens

INITIATION 87

present, past, and future, lays bare the conscience of men,
and manifests the inmost recesses of the female heart. The
lamp burns with a triple flame, the mantle is thrice-folded,
and the staff is divided into three parts.

The number nine is that of divine reflections ; it expresses
the divine idea in all its abstract power, but it also signifies
extravagance in belief, and hence superstition and idolatry.
For this reason Hermes has made it the number of initiation,
because the initiate reigns over superstition and by super-
stition, and alone can advance through the darkness, leaning
on his staff, enveloped in his mantle, and lighted by his
lamp. Eeason has been given to all men, but all do not
know how to make use of it ; it is a science to be acquired.
Liberty is offered to all, but not all can be free ; it is a
right that must be earned. Force is for all, but all do not
know how to rest upon it ; it is a power that must be
seized. We attain nothing without more than one effort.
The destiny of man is that he should enrich himself with
what he gains, and that he should afterwards have, like
God, the glory and pleasure of dispensing it.

Magic was called formerly the sacerdotal art and the
royal art, because initiation gave empire over souls to the
sage, and the adroitness for ruling wills. Divination is also
one of the privileges of the initiate ; now, divination is
simply the knowledge of effects contained in causes and
science applied to the facts of the universal dogma of analogy.
Human acts are not alone written in the astral light ; their
traces are left upon the face, they modify mien and carriage,
they change the tone of the voice. Thus every man bears
about him the history of his life, which is legible for the
initiate. "Now, the future is ever the consequence of the
past, and unexpected circumstances do not appreciably alter
results reasonably calculated. The destiny of each man can
be therefore foretold him. An entire existence can be
judged by a single movement; one piece of awkwardness
may be the presage of a long chain of misfortunes. Csesar
was assassinated because he was ashamed of being bald;

88 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Napoleon ended his days at St Helena because he admired
the poems of Ossian ; Louis Philippe abdicated the throne
as he did because he carried an umbrella. These are
paradoxes for the vulgar, who cannot grasp the occult re-
lations of things, but they are causes for the adept, who
understands all and is surprised at nothing.

Initiation is a preservative against the false lights of
mysticism ; it equips human reason with its relative value
and proportional infallibility, connecting it with supreme
reason by the chain of analogies. Hence the initiate knows
no doubtful hopes, no absurd fears, because he has no irra-
tional beliefs ; he is acquainted with the extent of his power,
and he can dare without danger. For him, therefore, to dare
is to be able. Here, then, is a new interpretation of his
attributes ; his lamp represents learning, the mantle which
enwraps him his discretion, and his staff is the emblem of
his strength and daring. He knows, he dares, and is silent.
He knows the secrets of the future, he dares in the present,
and he is silent on the past. He knows the failings of the
human heart ; he dares make use of them to achieve his
work ; and he is silent as to his purposes. He knows the
principle of all symbolisms and of all religions ; he dares to
practise or to abstain from them without hypocrisy and without
impiety ; and he is silent upon the one dogma of supreme
initiation. He knows the existence and nature of the great
magical agent ; he dares perform the acts and give utterance
to the words which make it subject to human will, and he
is silent upon the mysteries of the great arcanum.

So may you find him often melancholy, never dejected or
despairing ; often poor, never abject or miserable ; persecuted
often, never disheartened or conquered. He remembers the
bereavement and murder of Orpheus, the exile and lonely
death of Moses, the martyrdom of the prophets, the tortures
of Apollonius, the cross of the Saviour. He knows the
desolation in which Agrippa died, whose memory is even
now slandered ; he knows what labours overcame the great
Paracelsus, and all that Kaymond Lully was condemned to

THE KABBALAH 89

undergo that he might finish by a violent death. He re-
members Swedenborg simulating madness and even losing
reason in order to excuse his science ; St Martin and his
hidden life ; Cagliostro, who perished forsaken in the cells
of the Inquisition ; Cazotte, who ascended the scaffold. In-
heritor of so many victims, he does not dare the less, but he
understands better the necessity for silence. Let us follow
his example ; let us learn diligently ; when we know, let us
have courage, and let us be silent.

10 > K
THE KABBALAH

MALCHUTH PRINCIPIUM PHALLUS

ALL religions have preserved the remembrance of a primitive
book, written in types, by the sages of the earliest ages of
the world ; simplified and vulgarised in later days, its sym-
bols furnished letters to the art of Writing, characters to
the Word, and to occult Philosophy its mysterious signs
and pantacles. This book, attributed by the Hebrews to
Enoch, seventh master of the world after Adam; by the
Egyptians to Hermes-Trismegistus ; by the Greeks to
Cadmus, the mysterious builder of the Holy City ; this book
was the symbolical summary of primitive tradition, called
subsequently Kabbalah or Cabala, meaning reception. The
tradition in question rests altogether on the one dogma of
magic : the visible is for us the proportional measure of the
invisible. Now the ancients, observing that equilibrium is
the universal law in physics, consequent on the apparent
opposition of two forces, argued from physical to meta-
physical equilibrium, and maintained that in God, that is,
in the prime living and active cause, there must be recog-

90 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

nised two properties which are necessary to one another —
stability and motion, necessity and liberty, rational order
and volitional autonomy, justice and love, whence also
severity and mercy. Now, these two attributes were per-
sonified, so to speak, by the Kabbalistic Jews under the
names of Geburah and Chesed. Above Geburah and Chesed
abides the supreme crown, the equilibrating power, principle
of the world or equilibrated kingdom, which we find men-
tioned under the name of Malchuth in the occult and
kabbalistic versicle of the Pater-noster to which we have
already referred. But Geburah and Chesed, maintained in
equilibrium by the crown above and the kingdom below,
constitute two principles, which may be considered from an
abstract point of view, or in their realisation. In their
abstract or idealised sense, they take the higher names of
Chochmah, wisdom, and Binah, intelligence. Their realisa-
tion is stability and progress, that is, eternity and victory —
Hod and Netsah.

Such, according to the Kabbalah, is the groundwork of all
religions and all sciences — a triple triangle and a circle, the
notion of the triad explained by the balance multiplied by
itself in the domains of the ideal, then the realisation of this
conception in forms. Now, the ancients attached the first
notions of this simple and impressive theology to the very
idea of numbers, and qualified the figures of the first decade
after the following manner : —

1. Kether. — The Crown, the equilibrating power.

2. Chochmah. — Wisdom, equilibrated in its unchangeable
order by the initiative of intelligence.

3. Binah. — Active intelligence, equilibrated by Wisdom.

4. Chesed. — Mercy, which is wisdom in its secondary con-
ception, ever benevolent because it is strong.

5. Geburah. — Austerity, necessitated by Wisdom itself, and
by goodwill. To permit evil is to hinder good.

6. Tiphereth. — Beauty, the luminous conception of equili-
brium in forms, intermediary between the Crown and
the Kingdom, mediating principle between Creator and

THE KABBALAH

91

creation. (Sublime conception of poetry and its sovereign
priesthood !)

7. Netsah. — Victory, that is, eternal triumph of intelli-
gence and justice.

8. Hod. — Eternity of the conquests achieved by mind
over matter, active over passive, life over death.

9. Jesod. — The Foundation, that is, the basis of all belief
and all truth — what we term the ABSOLUTE in philosophy.

10. Malchuth. — The Kingdom is the universe, entire
creation, the work and mirror of God, the proof of supreme
reason, the formal consequence which compels us to have
recourse to virtual premisses, the enigma which has God for
its answer — supreme and absolute reason.

These ten primary notions attached to the ten first
characters of the primitive alphabet, signifying both prin-
ciples and numbers, are called the ten Sephiroth by the
masters in Kabbalah. The sacred tetragam, drawn in the
following manner, indicates the number, source, and corre-

spondence of the divine names. To this name of Jotchavah,
itten by these four-and-twenty signs, crowned with a
iple flower of light, must be referred the twenty -four
mes of heaven, and the twenty-four crowned elders in
the Apocalypse. In the Kabbalah the occult principle is
called the Elder, and this principle, multiplied, and, as it
were, reflected, in secondary causes, creates images of itself
lat is to say, so many elders as there are diverse concep-
ions of its unique essence. These images, less perfect in pro-
)rtion as they are further removed from their source, project
ipon the darkness an ultimate reflection or glimmer, repre-

92 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

senting a horrible and deformed elder, who is vulgarly termed
the devil. Hence an initiate has been bold enough to say :
" The devil is God, as understood by the wicked " ; while
another has added, in words more bizarre, but no less ener-
getic : " The devil is composed of God's ruins." "We may
sum up and explain these strikingly novel definitions by
remarking that in symbolism itself the demon is an angel
cast out of heaven for having sought to usurp divinity.
This belongs to the allegorical language of prophets and
makers of legends. Philosophically speaking, the devil is
a human idea of divinity, which has been surpassed and
dispossessed of heaven by the progress of science and
reason. Among primitive Oriental peoples, Moloch, Adram-
elek, Baal, were personifications of the one God, dis-
honoured by barbarous attributes. The god of the Jan-
senists, creating hell for the majority of human beings, and
delighting in the eternal tortures of those he was un-
willing to save, is a conception even more barbarous than
that of Moloch ; hence the god of the Jansenists is already
a veritable Satan, fallen from heaven, in the sight of every
wise and enlightened Christian.

In the multiplication of the divine names the kabbalists
have connected them all, either with the unity of the tetra-
gram, the figure of the triad, or the sephirotic scale of the
decad. They arrange the scale of the divine names and
numbers in a triangle, which may be presented in Eoman
characters as follows : —

J

JA

SDI

JEHV

ELOIM

SABAOT

ARARITA

ELVEDAAT

ELIM GIBOR

ELIM SABAOT

THE KABBALAH 93

The sum of all these divine names formed from the one
tetragram is a basis of the Hebrew Kitual, and constitutes
the occult force which the kabbalistic rabbins invoke under
the title of Semhamphoras.

We have now to concern ourselves with the Tarot from
the kabbalistic point of view, and have already indicated
the occult source of the name. This hieroglyphic book is
composed of a kabbalistic alphabet, and of a wheel or circle
of four decades, distinguished by four symbolical and typical
figures, each having for its radius a scale of four progressive
figures, which represent Humanity : man, woman, youth,
child — master, mistress, knight, esquire. The twenty-two
figures of the alphabet represent, in the first place, the
thirteen dogmas, and secondly, the nine beliefs authorised
by that Jewish religion which is so strong and so firmly
established in the highest reason.

Here follows the religious and kabbalistic key of The
Tarot, formulated in technical verses after the mode of the
ancient lawgivers : —

1 X A conscious, active cause in all we see.

2 l And number proves the living unity.

3 a No bound hath He who doth the whole contain.

4 T But, all preceding, fills life's vast domain.

5 n Sole worthy worship, He, the only Lord,

6 1 Doth his true doctrine to clean hearts accord.

7 T But since faith's works a single pontiff need,

8 pj One law have we, and at one altar plead ;

9 to Eternal God for aye their base upholds.

10 t Heaven and man's days alike his rule enfolds.

11 3 In mercy rich, in retribution strong,

12 () His people's King he will upraise ere long.

13 D The tomb gives entrance to the promised land,

Death only ends ; life's vistas still expand.

These doctrines sacred, pure, and stedfast shine ;
And thus we^close our number's scale divine.

14 3 Good angels all things temper and assuage,

15 D While evil spirits burst with wrath and rage.

16 y God doth the lightning rule, the flame subdue.

94 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

17 a His word controls both Vesper and her dew.

18 V He makes the moon our watchman through the night.

19 p And by his sun renews the world in light.

20 i When dust to dust returns, his breath can call

or v{5> Life from the tomb which is the fate of all.

»

81

or Vn His crown illuminates the mercy seat,
22

And glorifies the cherubs at his feet.

1

Vn Hi
J

By the help of this purely dogmatic explanation we shall
already understand the kabbalistic alphabet of the Tarot.
Thus, Figure I., entitled the Buffoon, represents the active
principle in the economy of divine and human autotelia.
Figure II., vulgarly called Pope Joan, represents dogmatic
unity based upon numbers, and is the personification of
the Kabbalah or the Gnosis. Figure III. represents divine
Spirituality under the emblem of a winged woman, holding
in one hand the apocalyptic eagle, and in the other the
world suspended from the end of her sceptre. The other
emblems are equally clear, and can be explained as easily
as the first. Turning now to the four suits, namely, Clubs,
Cups, Swords, and Circles or Pantacles, commonly called
Deniers — all these are hieroglyphics of the tetragram. Thus,
the Club is the Egyptian Phallus or Hebrew jod ; the Cup
is the cteis or primitive he ; the Sword is the conjunction
of both, or the lingam, represented in Hebrew preceding the
captivity by vau ; while the Circle or Pantacle, image of the
world, is the Tie final of the divine name. Now let us take a
Tarot and combine all its emblems one by one into the
Wheel or EOTA of William Postel ; let us group the four
aces, the four twos, and so on, together ; we shall then have
ten packs of cards giving the hieroglyphic interpretation of
the triangle of divine names on the scale of the denary, as
previously tabulated. By referring each number to its
corresponding Sephira, we may then read them off as
follows : —

THE KABBALAH 95

mrr

Four signs present the name of every name.

1 KETHER.
Tliefour Aces.
Four brilliant beams adorn his crown of flame.

2 CHOCHMAH.
The four Twos.
Four rivers ever from his wisdom flow.

3 BINAH.

The four Threes.
Four proofs of his intelligence we know.

4 CHESED.
The four Fours.
Four benefactions from his mercy come.

5 GEBURAH.
The four Fives.
Four times four sins avenged his justice sum.

6 TIPHERETH.
The four Sixes.
Four rays unclouded make his beauty known.

7 NETSAH.
The four Sevens.
Four times his conquest shall in song be shewn.

8 HOD.

The four Eights.
Four times he triumphs on the timeless plane.

9 JESOD.
The four Nines.
Foundations four his great white throne maintain.

10 MALCHUTH.

The four Tens.

One fourfold kingdom owns his endless sway,
As from his crown there streams a fourfold ray.

96 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

By this simple arrangement the kabbalistic meaning of
each card is exhibited. For example, the five of clubs
rigorously signifies Geburah of Jod, that is, the justice of
the creator or the wrath of man ; the seven of cups signifies
the victory of mercy or the triumph of woman ; the eight of
swords signifies conflict or eternal equilibrium ; and so of
the others. We can thus understand how the ancient
pontiffs proceeded to make the oracle speak. The chance
dealing of the lamens invariably produced a fresh kabba-
listic meaning, exactly true in its combinations, which alone
were fortuitous ; and, seeing that the faith of the ancients
attributed nothing to chance, they read the answers of
Providence in the oracles of the Tarot, which were called
Theraph or Theraphim by the Hebrews, as the erudite
kabbalist Gaffarel, one of the magicians employed by Cardinal
Richelieu, was the first to perceive.

As to the figures, a final couplet will suffice to explain
them : —

KING, QUEEN, KNIGHT, ESQUIRE.

The married pair, the youth, the child, the race ;
Thy path by these to Unity retrace.

At the end of the Eitual we shall provide further details,
together with full documents, concerning the marvellous
Tarot book, which is of all books the most primitive, the
key of prophecies and dogmas, in a word, the inspiration of
inspired works, a fact which has remained unperceived
equally by the science of Court de Gebelin and by the ex-
traordinary intuitions of Eteilla or Alliette.

The ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two Tarots form what
the kabbalists term the thirty-two paths of absolute science.
With regard to particular sciences, they distinguish them
into fifty chapters, which they call the fifty gates — among
Orientals the word gate signifies government or authority.
The rabbins also divided the Kabbalah into Bereschit, or
universal Genesis, and Mercavah, or the chariot of Ezekiel ;
then by means of a dual interpretation of the kabbalistic
alphabets, they formed two sciences, called Gematria and

THE MAGIC CHAIN 97

Temurah, and so composed the notary art, which is funda-
mentally the complete science of the Tarot signs and their
complex and varied application to the divination of all
secrets, whether of philosophy, nature, or the future itself.
We shall recur in our twentieth chapter to this work,

11 3 L
THE MAGIC CHAIN

MANUS FOKCE

THE great magical agent, by us termed the astral light, by
others the soul of the earth, and designated by old chemists
under the names of Azoth and Magnesia, this occult, unique,
and indubitable force, is the key of all empire, the secret
of all power ; it is the winged dragon of Medea, the serpent
of the Edenic mystery ; it is the universal glass of visions,
the bond of sympathies, the source of love, prophecy, and
glory. To know how to avail one's self of this agent is to
be the trustee of God's own power ; all real, effective magic,
all occult force is there, and its demonstration is the sole
end of all genuine books of science. To possess one's self
of the great magical agent there are two operations necessary
—to concentrate and project, or, in other words, to fix and
to move. Fixity has been provided as the basis and
guarantee of movement by the Author of all things ; the
magus must go to work in like manner.

It is said that enthusiasm is contagious — and why ? Because
it cannot be produced in the absence of collective faith. Faith
produces faith ; to believe is to have a reason for willing ; to
will with reason is to will with power — not, I say, with an
mite, but with an indefinite power. What operates in the
itellectual and moral world obtains still more in the physical,

G

98 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

and when Archimedes was in want of a lever to move the
world, what he sought was simply the great magical arcanum.
One arm of the androgyne figure of Henry Khunrath bore
the word COAGULA and the other SOLVE. To collect and
diffuse are nature's two words — but after what manner can
we accomplish these operations with the astral light or soul
of the world ? Concentration is by isolation and distribution
by the magical chain. Isolation consists in absolute in-
dependence for thought, complete liberty for the heart, and
perfect continence for the senses. Every man who is pos-
sessed by prejudices and fears, every passionate person who is
slave of his passions, is incapable of concentrating or coagulat-
ing, according to the expression of Khunrath, the astral light or
soul of the earth. All true adepts have been independent
even amidst torture, sober and chaste till death. The ex-
planation of such anomaly is this — in order to dispose of a
force, you must not be surprised by this force in a way that
it may dispose of you. But then, cry out those who seek
only in magic for a method of inordinately satisfying the
lusts of nature, what good is a power which must not be
used for our own satisfaction ? Unhappy creatures who
ask, if I told you, how could you grasp it ? Are pearls
nothing because they are worthless to the horde of Epicurus ?
Did not Curtius prefer the government of those who had
gold than its possession by himself ? Must we not be
something removed from the common man when we almost
pretend to be God ? Moreover, I grieve to deject or dis-
courage you, but I am not devising the transcendental
sciences ; I teach them, defining their immutable necessities
in the presentation of their primary and most inexorable
conditions. Pythagoras was a free, sober, and chaste man ;
Apollonius of Tyana and Julius Caesar were both of repellent
austerity ; the sex of Paracelsus was suspected, so foreign
was he to the weakness of love; Kaymond Lully carried
the severity of life to the most exalted point of asceticism ;
Jerome Cardan exaggerated the practice of fasting till he
nearly perished of starvation, if we may accept tradition ;

THE MAGIC CHAIN 99

Agrippa, poor and buffeted from town to town, almost died
of misery rather than yield to the caprice of a princess who
insulted the liberty of science. What then made the felicity
of these men ? The knowledge of great secrets and the
consciousness of power. It was sufficient for those great
souls. Must one be like unto them in order to know what
they knew ? Assuredly not, and the existence of this book is
perhaps a case in point ; but in order to do what they did,
it is absolutely necessary to take the means which they took.
But what did they actually accomplish ? They astonished
and subdued the world; they reigned more truly than kings.
Magic is an instrument of divine goodness or demoniac
pride, but it is the annihilation of earthly joys and the
pleasures of mortal life. Why study it ? ask the luxurious.
Merely to know it and possibly after to learn mistrust of
stupid unbelief or puerile credulity. Men of pleasure, and
half of these I count for so many women, is not gratified
curiosity highly pleasurable ? Read therefore without fear,
you will not be magicians against your will. Readiness for
absolute renunciation is, moreover, necessary only in order
to establish universal currents and transform the face of the
world; there are relative magical operations, limited to
a certain circle, which do not need such heroic virtues.
We can act upon passions by passions, determine sympathies
or antipathies, hurt even and heal, without possessing the
omnipotence of the magus ; in this case, however, we must
realise the risk of a reaction in proportion to the action, to
which we may easily fall a victim. All this will be ex-
plained in our Ritual.

To make the magic chain is to establish a magnetic
current which becomes stronger in proportion to the extent
of the chain. We shall see in the Ritual how these
currents can be produced, and what are the various modes
of forming the chain. Mesmer's trough was an exceedingly
imperfect magic chain ; several great circles of illuminati in
different northern countries possess more potent chains.
Even that association of Catholic priests, celebrated for their

100 THE DOCTKINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

occult power and their unpopularity, is established upon the
plan and follows the conditions of the most potent magical
chains, and herein is the secret of their force, which they attri-
bute solely to the grace or will of God, a vulgar and cheap
solution for every mystery of power in influence or attraction.
In the Eitual it will be our task to estimate the sequence of
truly magical ceremonies and evocations which make up the
great work of vocation under the name of the Exercises of
St Ignatius.

All enthusiasm propagated in a society by a series of com-
munications and practices in common produces a magnetic
-current, and continues or increases by the current. The
action of the current is to carry away and often to exalt
beyond measure persons who are impressionable and weak,
nervous organisations, temperaments inclined to hysteria
or hallucination. Such people soon become powerful
vehicles of magical force and efficiently project the
astral light in the direction of the current itself ;
opposition at such a time to the manifestations of the
force is, to some extent, a struggle with fatality.
When the youthful Pharisee Saul, or Schol, threw himself,
with all the fanaticism and all the determination of a
sectarian, across the aggressive line of Christianity, he
unconsciously placed himself at the mercy of a power
against which he thought to prevail, and hence he was
struck down by a formidable magnetic flash, doubtless the
more instantaneous by reason of the combined effect of cere-
.bral congestion and sunstroke. The conversion of the young
Israelite, Alphonsus of Ratisbonne, is a contemporary fact
which is absolutely of the same nature. We are acquainted
with a sect of enthusiasts whom it is common to deride at a
distance, and to join, despite one's self, as soon as they are
approached, even with a hostile intention. I will go further,
and affirm that magical circles and magnetic currents estab-
lish themselves, and have an influence, according to fatal
laws, upon those on whom they can act. Each one of us is
drawn within a circle of relations which constitutes his

THE MAGIC CHAIN 101

world, and to the influence of which he is made subject.
The lawgiver of the French Eevolution, that man whom the
most spiritual nation in the whole world acknowledged as
the incarnation of human reason, Jean Jacques Kousseau,
was drawn into the most lamentable action of his life, the
desertion of his children, by the magnetic influence of a
libertine circle and a magical current of table-d'hdte. He
describes it simply and ingenuously in his Confessions, but
it is a fact which has remained unobserved. Great circles
very often make great men, and vice-versd. There are no
unrecognised geniuses, there are eccentric men, and the term
would seem to have been invented by an adept. The man
who is eccentric in his genius is one who attempts to form
a circle by combating the central attractive force of estab-
lished chains and currents. It is his destiny to be broken
or to succeed. Now, what is the twofold condition of success
in such a case ? A central point of stability and a persever-
ing circular action of initiative. The man of genius is one
who has discovered a real law, and is thereby possessed of
an invincible, active, and grinding power. He may die
in the midst of his work, but that which he has willed
comes to pass, in spite of his death, and is indeed often
ensured thereby, because death is a veritable assumption for
genius. " When I shall be lifted up from the earth," said
the greatest of the initiators, " I will draw all things after
me."

The law of magnetic currents is that of the movement of the
astral light itself, which is always double, and augments in
an opposite sense. A great action invariably paves the way
for a reaction of equal magnitude, and the secret of pheno-
menal successes consists entirely in the foreknowledge of
reactions. Thus did Chateaubriand, penetrated with disgust
at the saturnalia of the revolution, foresee and prepare the
immense success of his " Genius of Christianity." To
oppose one's self to a current at the beginning of its revolu-
tion is to court being destroyed by that current, like the
great and unfortunate Emperor Julian ; to oppose one's self

102 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

to a current which has run its round is to take the lead of
a contrary current. The great man is he who comes season-
ably and knows how to innovate opportunely. In the days
of the apostles, Voltaire would have found no echo for his
utterances, and might have been merely an ingenious
parasite at the banquets of Trimalcyon. Now, at the
epoch wherein we live, everything is ripe for a fresh out-
burst of evangelical zeal and Christian self-devotion,
precisely by reason of the prevailing general disillusion,
egoistic positivism, and public cynicism of the coarsest
interests. The success of certain books and the mystical
tendencies of minds are unequivocal symptoms of this wide-
spread disposition. We restore and we build churches only
to realise more keenly that we are void of belief, only to
long the more for it ; once more does the whole world await
its Messiah, and he cannot tarry in his coming. Let a man,
for example, come forward, who by rank or by fortune is
placed in an exalted position — a pope, a king, even a Jewish
millionaire — and let this man publicly and solemnly
sacrifice all his material interests for the weal of
humanity ; let him make himself the saviour of the
poor, the disseminator, and even the victim, of doc-
trines of renunciation and charity, and he will draw
round him an immense following; he will accomplish a
complete moral revolution in the world. But the high
place is before all things necessary for such a personage,
because, in these days of meanness and trickery, any Word
issuing from the lower ranks is suspected of interested
ambition and imposture. Ye, then, who are nothing, ye
who possess nothing, aspire not to be apostles or messiahs.
If you have faith, and would act in accordance therewith,
get possession, in the first place, of the means of action,
which are the influence of rank and the prestige of fortune.
In olden times gold was manufactured by science ; nowadays
science must be remade by gold. We have fixed the vola-
tile, and we must now volatilise the fixed — in other words,
we have materialised spirit, and we must now spiritualise

THE MAGIC CHAIN 103

matter. The most sublime utterance now passes unheeded if it
goes forth without the guarantee of a name — that is to say,
of a success which represents a material value. What is
the worth of a manuscript ? That of the author's signature
among the booksellers ? That established reputation known
as Alexander Dumas et Cie represents one of the literary
guarantees of our time, but the house of Dumas is in
repute only for the romances which are its exclusive pro-
ductions. Let Dumas devise a magnificent Utopia, or
discover a splendid solution of the religious problem, and
no one will take them seriously, despite the European
celebrity of the Panurge of modern literature. We are in
the age of acquired positions, where every one is appraised
according to his social and commercial standing. Unlimited
freedom of speech has produced such a strife of words that
no one inquires what is said, but who has said it. If it be
Eothschild, his Holiness Pius the Ninth, or even Monseigneur
Dupanloup, it is something ; but if it be Tartempion, it is
nothing, were he even — which is possible, after all — an
unrecognised prodigy of genius, knowledge, and good sense.
Hence to those who would say to me : If you possess the
secret of great successes, and of a force which can transform
the world, why do you not make use of them ? I would
answer : This knowledge has come to me too late for my-
self, and I have spent over its acquisition the time and the
resources which might have enabled me to apply it ; I
offer it to those who are in a position to avail themselves
of it. Illustrious men, rich men, great ones of this world,
who are dissatisfied with that which you have, who are
conscious of a nobler and larger ambition, will you be
fathers of a new world, kings of a rejuvenated civilisation ?
A poor and obscure scholar has found the lever of Archi-
mides, and he offers it to you for the good of humanity
alone, asking nothing whatsoever in exchange.

The phenomena which have quite recently perturbed
America and Europe, as regards table-turning and fluidic
manifestations, are simply magnetic currents at the be-

104 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ginning of their formation, appeals on the part of nature
inviting us, for the good of humanity, to re-establish the
great sympathetic and religious chains. As a fact, stag-
nation in the astral light would mean death to the human
race, and torpor in this secret agent has already been mani-
fested by alarming symptoms of decomposition and death.
For example, cholera-morbus, the potato disease, and the
blight of the grape, are traceable solely to this cause, as the
two young shepherds of la Salette saw darkly and sym-
bolically in their dream. The unlooked-for credit which
awaited their narrative, and the vast concourse of pilgrims
attracted by a statement so singular and at the same time
so vague as that of these two children without instruction
and almost without morality, are proofs of the magnetic
reality of the fact, and the fluidic tendency of the earth
itself to operate the cure of its inhabitants. Superstitions are
instinctive, and all that is instinctive is founded in the very
nature of things, to which fact the sceptics of all times have
given insufficient attention. We attribute, then, all the
strange phenomena of table-turning to the universal mag-
netic agent in search of a chain of enthusiasms with a view
to the formation of fresh currents. The force of itself is
blind, but it can be directed by the will of man, and is in-
fluenced by prevailing opinions. This universal fluid — if
we decide to regard it as a fluid — being the common
medium of all nervous organisms, and the vehicle of all
sensitive vibrations, establishes an actual physical solidarity
between impressionable persons, and transmits from one to
another the impressions of imagination and of thought.
The movement of the inert object, determined by the
undulations of the universal agent, obeys the ruling im-
pression, and reproduces in its revelations at one time
all the lucidity of the most wonderful visions, and at
another all the eccentricity and falsehood of the most
vague and incoherent dreams. The blows resounding on
furniture, the clattering of dishes, the self -playing of musical
instruments, are illusions produced by the same cause. The

THE MAGIC CHAIN 105

miracles of the convulsionaries of Saint Medard were of the
same order, and seemed frequently to suspend the laws of
nature. On the one hand, exaggeration produced by fascina-
tion, which is the special quality of intoxication occasioned
by congestions of the astral light; on the other, actual
oscillations or movements impressed upon inert matter by
the subtle and universal agent of motion and life. Such is
the sole foundation of these occurrences which look so
marvellous, as we may easily demonstrate at will by re-
producing, in accordance with rules laid down in the Ritual,
the most astounding of these phenomena, establishing, as
can be done quite simply, the absence of trickery, hallucina-
tion, or error.

It has frequently happened to me after experiments in
the magic chain, performed with persons devoid of good
intention or sympathy, that I have been awakened with a
start in the night by truly alarming impressions and sensa-
tions. On one such occasion I felt vividly the pressure of
an unknown hand attempting to strangle me; I rose up,
lighted my lamp, and set myself calmly to work, seeking to
profit by my wakefulness and to drive away the phantoms
of sleep. The books about me were moved with much
noise, papers were disturbed and rubbed one against another,
timber creaked as if on the point of splitting, and heavy
blows resounded on the ceiling. With curiosity but also
with tranquillity I observed all these phenomena, which
would not have been less wonderful had they been only the
product of my imagination, so real did they seem. For the
rest, I may state that I was in no sense frightened, and
during this occurrence I was engaged upon something quite
foreign to the occult sciences. By the repetition of similar
phenomena I was led to attempt the experience of evoca-
tion, assisted by the magical ceremonies of the ancients,
when I obtained truly astounding results, which will be set
forth in the thirteenth chapter of this work.

106 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

12 5> M

THE GEEAT WORK

DISCITE CRUX

THE great work is, before all things, the creation of man by
himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his
faculties and his future ; it is especially the perfect emanci-
pation of his will, assuring him universal dominion over
Azoth and the domain of Magnesia, in other words, full
power over the universal magical agent. This agent, dis-
guised by the ancient philosophers under the name of the
first matter, determines the forms of modifiable substance,
and we can really arrive by means of it at metallic trans-
mutation and the universal medicine. This is not a hypo-
thesis, it is a scientific fact already established and rigorously
demonstrable. Nicholas Flamel and Eaymond Lully, both
of them poor, indubitably distributed immense riches.
Agrippa never proceeded beyond the first part of the great
work, and he died in the ordeal, fighting to possess himself
and to fix his independence.

Now, there are two Hermetic operations, the one spiritual,
the other material, and these are mutually dependent. For
the rest, all Hermetic science is contained in the doctrine of
Hermes, which is said to have been originally inscribed upon
an emerald tablet. Its first articles have been already
expounded, and those follow which are concerned with the
operation of the great work : — " Thou shalt separate the
earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, with
great industry. It rises from earth to heaven, and again it
descends to earth, and it receives the power of things above
and of things below. By this means shalt thou obtain the
glory of the whole world, and all darkness shall depart from
thee. It is the strong power of every power, for it will
overcome all that is subtle and penetrate all that is solid.

THE GREAT WORK 107

Thus was the world created." To separate the subtle from
the gross, in the first operation, which is wholly interior, is
to set the soul free from all prejudice and all vice, which is
accomplished by the use of the philosophical salt, that is to
say, wisdom ; of mercury, that is, personal skill and applica-
tion ; finally, of sulphur, representing vital energy and
fire of will. By these are we enabled to change into
spiritual gold things which are of all least precious, even the
refuse of the earth. In this sense we must interpret the
parables of the choir of philosophers, Bernard Trevisan,
Basil Valentine, Mary the Egyptian and other prophets of
alchemy ; but in their works, as in the great work, we must
adroitly separate the subtle from the gross, the mystical
from the positive, allegory from theory. If we would read
them with profit and understanding, we must take them
first of all as allegorical in their entirety, and then descend
from allegories to realities by the way of the correspondences
or analogies indicated in the one dogma : — That which is
above is proportional to that which is below, and recipro-
cally. The word ART when reversed, or read after the
manner of sacred and primitive characters from right to left,
gives three initials which express the different grades of the
great work. T signifies triad, theory, and travail ; E,
realisation ; A, adaptation. In the twelfth chapter of the
Ritual, we shall give the processes for adaptation, in use
among the great masters, especially that which is contained
in the Hermetic Citadel of Henry Khunrath. In this place
we may indicate for the researches of our readers an admir-
able treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, entitled
Minerva Mundi. It is found only in certain editions of
Hermes, and contains, beneath allegories full of profundity
and poetry, the doctrine of individual self-creation, or the
creative law consequent on the accordance between two
forces, which are termed fixed and volatile by alchemists,
and are necessity and liberty in the absolute order. The
diversity of the forms which abound in nature is explained,
in this treatise, by the diversity of spirits, and monstrosities

108 THE DOCTKINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

by the divergence of efforts ; its reading and assimilation
are indispensable for all adepts who would fathom the
mysteries of nature and devote themselves seriously to the
search after the great work.

When the masters in alchemy say that a short time and
little money are needed to accomplish the works of science,
above all when they affirm that one vessel is alone needed,
when they speak of the great and unique athanor, which all
can use, which is ready to each man's hand, which all possess
without knowing it, they allude to philosophical and moral
alchemy. As a fact, a strong and determined will can arrive
in a short time at absolute independence, and we are all in
possession of the chemical instrument, the great and sole
athanor which answers for the separation of the subtle from
the gross and the fixed from the volatile. This instrument,
complete as the world and precise as mathematics, is repre-
sented by the sages under the emblem of the pentagram or
five-pointed star, which is the absolute sign of human intelli-
gence. I will follow the example of the wise by forbearing
to name it ; it is too easy to guess it.

The Tarot figure which corresponds to this chapter was
misconstrued by Court de Gebelin and Etteilla, who regarded
it as a blunder of a German cardmaker. It represents a
man with his hands bound behind him, having two bags of
silver attached to the armpits, and being suspended by one
foot from a gibbet formed by the trunks of two trees, each
with a root of six lopped branches, and by a crosspiece, thus
completing the figure of the Hebrew tau n ; the legs of the
victim are crossed, and his head and elbows form a triangle.
Now, the triangle surmounted by a cross signifies, in alchemy,
the end and perfection of the great work, a signification
which is identical with that of the letter tau, the last of the
sacred alphabet. This hanged man is, consequently, the
adept, bound by his engagements, and spiritualised, that is,
having his feet turned towards heaven ; it is also the antique
Prometheus, expiating by everlasting torture the penalty of
his glorious theft ; vulgarly, it is the traitor Judas, and his

THE GREAT WORK 109

punishment threatens betrayers of the great arcanum.
Finally, for Kabbalistic Jews, the hanged man, who corre-
sponds to their twelfth doctrine, that of the promised
Messiah, is a protestation against the Saviour acknowledged
by Christians, and they seem to say unto him still : — How
canst thou save others, since thou canst not save thyself ?

In the Sepher - Toldos - Jeschu, an anti-christian rab-
binical compilation, there occurs a singular parable. Jeschu,
says the rabbinical author of the legend, was travelling with
Simon-Barjona and Judas Iscariot. Late and weary they
came to a lonely house, and, being very hungry, could find
nothing to eat except an exceedingly lean gosling. It was
insufficient for three persons, and to divide it would be to
sharpen without satisfying hunger. They agreed to draw
lots, but as they were heavy with sleep, " Let us first of all
slumber," said Jeschu, " whilst the supper is preparing ;
when we wake we will tell our dreams, and he who has had
the most beautiful dream shall have the whole gosling to his
own share. So it was arranged ; they slept and they woke.
As for me, said St Peter, I dreamed that I was the vicar of
God. And I, said Jeschu, that I was God himself. For
me, said Judas hypocritically, I dreamed that, being in
somnambulism, I arose, went softly downstairs, took the
gosling from the spit, and ate it. Thereupon they also went
down, but the gosling had completely vanished. Judas had
a waking dream.

This anecdote is given, not in the text of the Sepher-
Toldos-Jeschu itself, but in the rabbinical commentaries on
that work. The legend is a protest of Jewish positivism
against Christian mysticism. As a fact, while the faithful
surrendered themselves to magnificent dreams, the proscribed
Israelite, Judas of the Christian civilisation, worked, sold,
intrigued, became rich, possessed himself of this life's reali-
ties, so that he became in a position to advance the means
of existence to the very forms of worship which had so long
outlawed him. The ancient adorers of the ark remained
true to the cultus of the strong box ; the exchange is now

110 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

their temple, and thence they govern the Christian world.
The laugh is indeed with Judas, who can congratulate him-
self upon not having slept like St Peter.

In archaic writings preceding the Captivity, the Hebrew
tau was cruciform, which further confirms our interpreta-
tion of the twelfth plate of the Kabbalistic Tarot. The
cross, which produces four triangles, is also the sacred sign
of the duodenary, and on this account it was called the Key
of heaven by the Egyptians. So Etteilla, confused by his
protracted researches for the conciliation of the analogical
necessities of this symbol with his own personal opinion, in
which he was influenced by the erudite Court de Gebelin,
placed in the hand of his upright hanged man, by him inter-
preted as Prudence, a Hermetic caduceus, formed by two
serpents and a Greek tau. Seeing that he understood the
necessity for the tau or cross on the twelfth leaf of the book
of Thoth, he should also have seen the multiple and magni-
ficent meaning of the Hermetic hanged man, the Prometheus
of science, the living man who makes contact with earth by
his thought alone, whose firm ground is heaven, the free and
immolated adept, the revealer menaced with death, the con-
juration of Judaism against Christ, which seems to be an
involuntary admission of the secret divinity of the Crucified,
lastly, the sign of the work accomplished, the cycle termin-
ated, the intermediary tau, which resumes for the first time,
before the final denary, the signs of the sacred alphabet.

NECROMANCY 111

13 D N

NECKOMANCY

EX IPSIS MORS

WE have said that the images of persons and things are
preserved in the astral light. Therein also can be evoked
the forms of those who are in our world no longer, and by
this means are accomplished those mysteries of necromancy
which are so contested and at the same time so real. The
Kabbalists who have discoursed concerning the world of
spirits have simply described what they have seen in their
evocations. Eliphas Levi Zahed,^ who writes this book,
has evoked, and he has seen. Let us state, in the first
place, what the masters have written of their visions or
their intuitions in that which they term the light of glory.
We read in the Hebrew book concerning the Revolution of
Souls that there are three classes of souls — the daughters of
Adam, the daughters of angels, and the daughters of sin.
According to the same book, there are also three kinds of
spirits — captive spirits, wandering spirits, and free spirits.
Souls are sent forth in couples ; at the same time certain
souls of men are born widowed, and their spouses are held
captive by Lilith and Naemah, the queens of the stryges ;
they are souls condemned to expiate the temerity of a
celibate's vow. Hence, when a man renounces the love
of women from his infancy, he makes the bride who was
destined for him a slave to the demons of debauch. Souls
grow and multiply in heaven as bodies do upon earth.
Immaculate souls are the daughters of the kisses of angels.

Nothing can enter heaven save that which comes from

neaven. Hence, after death, the divine spirit which

animated man returns alone to heaven and leaves two

corpses, one upon earth, the other in the atmosphere ; one

* These Hebrew names translated into French are Alphonse Louis Constant.

112 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

terrestrial and elementary, the other aerial and sidereal, one
already inert, the other still animated by the universal
movement of the soul of the world, yet destined to die
slowly, absorbed by the astral forces which produced it.
The terrestrial body is visible ; the other is unseen by the
eyes of earthly and living bodies, nor can it be beheld except
by the application of the astral light to the translucid, which
conveys its impressions to the nervous system, and thus in-
fluences the organ of sight so as to make it perceive the
forms which are preserved and the words which are written
in the book of vital light.

When a man has lived well the astral body evaporates
like a pure incense ascending towards the upper regions ;
but should he have lived in sin, his astral body, which holds
him prisoner, still seeks the objects of its passions, and
wishes to return to life. It torments the dreams of young
girls, bathes in the steam of spilt blood, and floats about
the places where the pleasures of its life elapsed ; it still
watches over treasures which it possessed and buried; it
expends itself in painful efforts to make fresh material
organs and so live again. But the stars draw it up and
absorb it ; its feels its intelligence weaken, its memory
gradually vanishes, all its being dissolves. . . . Its former
vices rise up before it, assume monstrous shapes, and pursue
it ; they attack and devour it. ... The unfortunate creature
thus successively loses all the members which have ministered
to his iniquities ; then he dies a second time and for ever,
because he loses his personality and his memory. Souls
which are destined to live, but are not yet completely
purified, remain captive for a longer or shorter period in
the astral body, wherein they are burned by the odic light,
which seeks to absorb and dissolve them. It is in order to
escape from this body that suffering souls sometimes enter
the bodies of the living and therein dwell in that state
which Kabbalists term embryonic. Now, it is these aerial
bodies which are evoked by necromancy. We enter into
connection with larvae, with dead or perishing substances,

NECROMANCY 113

by this operation. The beings in question, for the most
part, cannot speak except by the tingling of our ears pro-
duced by the nervous shock to which I have referred, and
commonly they can only reason by reflecting our thoughts
and our reveries. To behold these strange forms, we must
put ourselves in abnormal condition akin to sleep or death,
in other words, we must magnetise ourselves and enter into
a kind of lucid and waking somnambulism. Then necro-
mancy has real results, and then the evocations of magic
can produce actual visions. We have said that in the great
magical agent, which is the astral light, there are preserved
all impressions of things, all images formed either by rays
or reflections ; in this same light our visions come to us,
and it is this which intoxicates the insane, and leads away
their dormant judgment in pursuit of the most bizarre
phantoms. To insure vision without illusion in this light,
a powerful will must be with us to isolate reflections and
attract rays only. To dream awake is to see in the astral
light, and the orgies of the Sabbath, described by so many
sorcerers in their criminal trials, came to them solely in
this manner. The preparations and the substances used to
obtain this result were often horrible, as we shall see in the
Ritual, but the result itself was never doubtful. They be-
held, they heard, they handled the most abominable, most
fantastic, most impossible things. We shall return to this
subject in our fifteenth chapter ; at the present moment we
are concerned only with the evocations of the dead.

In the spring of the year 1854 I had undertaken a
rney to London, that I might escape from internal dis-
quietude, and devote myself, without interruption, to science.
I had letters of introduction to persons of eminence, who
were anxious for revelations from the supernatural world.
I made the acquaintance of several, and discovered in them,
amidst much that was courteous, a depth of indifference or
trifling. They asked me forthwith to work wonders, as if I
were a charlatan, and I was somewhat discouraged, for, to
speak frankly, far from being inclined to initiate others into

H

are
jou

114 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the mysteries of ceremonial magic, I had myself shrunk all
along from its illusions and weariness ; moreover, such cere-
monies necessitated an equipment which would be expen-
sive and hard to collect. I buried myself, therefore, in the
study of the transcendent Kabbalah, and concerned myself
no further with English adepts, when, returning one day to
my hotel, I found a note awaiting me. This note contained
half of a card, divided transversely, on which I immediately
recognised the seal of Solomon. It was accompanied by a
small sheet of paper, on which these words were pencilled :
— " To-morrow, at three o'clock, in front of Westminster
Abbey, the second half of this card will be given you.". I
kept this curious assignation. At the appointed spot I
found a carriage drawn up, and as I held unaffectedly the
morsel of card in my hand, a footman approached, making
a sign as he did so, and then opened the door of the
equipage. It contained a lady in black, wearing a thick
veil ; she motioned to me to take a seat beside her, shewing
me at the same time the other half of the card. The door
closed, the carriage drove off, and, the lady raising her veil,
I saw that my appointment was with an elderly person,
with grey eyebrows and black eyes of unusual brilliance,
and strangely fixed in expression. " Sir," she began, with
a strongly marked English accent, " I am aware that the
law of secrecy is rigorous amongst adepts ; a friend of Sir

B L , who has seen you, knows that you have

been asked for phenomena, and that you have refused to
gratify such curiosity. You are possibly without the
materials ; I should like to shew you a complete magical
cabinet, but I must exact beforehand the most inviolable
silence. If you will not give me this pledge upon your
honour, I shall give orders for you to be driven to your
home." I made the required promise, and faithfully keep
it by divulging neither the name, position, nor abode of this
lady, whom I soon recognised as an initiate, not exactly of
the first order, but still of a most exalted grade. We had
a number of long conversations, in the course of which she

NECROMANCY 115

invariably insisted upon the necessit}7 of practical experience
to complete initiation. She shewed me a collection of magical
vestments and instruments, lent me some rare books, which
I needed ; in short, she determined me to attempt, at her
house, the experiment of a complete evocation, for which I
prepared during a period of twenty-one days, scrupulously
observing the rules laid down in the thirteenth chapter of
the Eitual.

The probation terminated on the 24th of July : it was
proposed to evoke the phantom of the divine Apollonius,
and to question it upon two secrets, one which concerned
myself, and one which interested the lady. She had
counted on taking part in the evocation with a trustworthy
person, but this person proved nervous at the last moment,
and, as the triad or unity is indispensable for magical rites,
I was left to my own resources. The cabinet prepared for
the evocation was situated in a turret; it contained four
concave mirrors, and a species of altar having a white marble
top, encircled by a chain of magnetized iron. The sign of
the pentagram, as given in the fifth chapter of this work,
was carved and gilded on the white marble surface ; it was
drawn also in various colours upon a new white lambskin
stretched beneath the altar. In the middle of the marble
table there was a small copper chafing-dish, containing
charcoal of alder and laurel wood; another chafing-dish
was set before me on a tripod. I was clothed in a white
garment, very similar to the vestments of our catholic
priests, but longer and wider, and I wore upon my head a
crown of vervain leaves, intertwined with a golden chain.
I held a new sword in one hand, and in the other the
Eitual. I kindled two fires with the required and prepared
substances, and I began reading the evocations of the Ritual
in a voice at first low, but rising by degrees. The smoke
spread, the flame caused the objects upon which it fell to
waver, then it went out, the smoke still floating white and
slow about the marble altar ; I seemed to feel a kind of
quaking of the earth, my ears tingled, my heart beat quickly.

116 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

I heaped more twigs and perfumes on the chafing-dishes,
and as the flame again burst up, I beheld distinctly, before
the altar, the figure of a man of more than normal size,
which dissolved and vanished away. I recommenced the
evocations, and placed myself within a circle which I had
drawn previously between the tripod "and the altar. There-
upon the mirror which was behind the altar seemed to
brighten in its depth, a wan form was outlined therein,
which increased, and seemed to approach by degrees. Three
times, and with closed eyes, I invoked Apollonius. When
I again looked forth there was a man in front of me,
wrapped from head to foot in a species of shroud, which
seemed more grey than white ; he was lean, melancholy and
beardless, and did not altogether correspond to my pre-
conceived notion of Apollonius. I experienced an abnorm-
ally cold sensation, and when I endeavoured to question
the phantom I could not articulate a syllable. I therefore
placed my hand upon the sign of the pentagram, and
pointed the sword at the figure, commanding it mentally to
obey and not alarm me, in virtue of the said sign. The
form thereupon became vague, and suddenly disappeared. I
directed it to return, and presently felt, as it were, a breath
close by me, something touched my hand which was holding
the sword, and the arm became immediately benumbed as
far as the elbow. I divined that the sword displeased the
spirit, and I therefore placed its point downwards, close by
me, within the circle. The human figure reappeared imme-
diately, but I experienced such an intense weakness in all
my limbs, and a swooning sensation came so quickly over
me, that I made two steps to sit down, whereupon I fell
into a profound lethargy, accompanied by dreams, of which I
had only a confused recollection when I came again to
myself. For several subsequent days my arm remained
benumbed and painful. The apparition olid not speak to-
me, but it seemed that the questions I had designed to ask
answered themselves in my mind. To that of the lady an
Anterior voice replied — Death ! — it was concerning a man

NECROMANCY 1 1 7

of whom she desired information. As for myself, I sought
to know whether reconciliation and forgiveness were
possible between two persons who occupied my thoughts,
and the same inexorable echo within me also answered —
Dead !

I am stating facts as they occurred, but I would impose
faith on no one. The consequence of this experience on
myself was something inexplicable. I was no longer the
same man ; something of another world had passed into
me ; I was no longer either sad or cheerful, but I felt a
singular attraction towards death, unaccompanied, however,
by any suicidal tendency. I analysed my experience care-
fully, and, notwithstanding a lively nervous repugnance, I
twice repeated the same experiment, allowing some days to
elapse between each ; there was not, however, sufficient
difference between the phenomena to warrant me in pro-
tracting a narrative which is perhaps already too long. But
the net result of these two additional evocations was for me
the revelation of two Kabbalistic secrets which might
change, in a short space of time, the foundations and
laws of society at large, if they came to be known gener-
ally.

Am I to conclude from all this that I really evoked,
saw, and touched the great Apollonius of Tyana ? I am
not so hallucinated as to affirm or so unserious as to believe
it. The effect of the probations, the perfumes, the mirrors,
the pantacles, is an actual drunkenness of the imagination,
which must act powerfully upon a person otherwise nervous
and impressionable. I do not explain the physical laws by
which I saw and touched; I affirm solely that I did see
and that I did touch, that I saw clearly and distinctly, apart
from dreaming, and this is sufficient to establish the real
efficacy of magical ceremonies. For the rest, I regard the
practice as destructive and dangerous ; if it became habitual,
neither moral nor physical health would be able to with-
stand it. The elderly lady whom I have mentioned, and of
whom I subsequently had reason to complain, was a case in

118 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

point ; despite her asseverations to the contrary, I have no
doubt that she was addicted to necromancy and goetia. She
at times lost all self-control, at others yielded to senseless
fits of passion, for which it was difficult to discover a cause.
I left London without bidding her adieu, and I shall faith-
fully adhere to my engagement by giving no clue to her
identity, which might connect her name with practices,
pursued in all probability without the knowledge of her
family, which I believe to be large and of very considerable
position.

There are evocations of intelligence, evocations of love, and
evocations of hate ; but, once more, there is no proof whatso-
ever that spirits really leave the higher spheres to communi-
cate with us ; the opposite, as a fact, is more probable. We
evoke the memories which they have left in the astral light,
or common reservoir of universal magnetism. It was in this
light that the Emperor Julian once saw the gods manifest,
looking old, ill, and decrepit — fresh proof of the influence
exercised by current and accredited opinions on the reflec-
tions of this same magical agent which makes our tables
talk and answers by taps on the walls. After the evocation
I have described, I re-read carefully the life of Apollonius,
who is represented by historians as an ideal of antique
beauty and elegance, and I then observed that towards the
end of his life he was starved and tormented in prison.
This circumstance, which may have remained in my memory
without my being aware of it, possibly determined the un-
attractive form of my vision, which I regard solely as the
voluntary dream of a waking man. I have seen two other
persons, whom there is no occasion to name, both differing,
as regards costume and appearance, from what I had ex-
pected. For the rest, I commend the greatest caution to
those who propose devoting themselves to similar experiences ;
their result is intense exhaustion, and frequently a shock
sufficient to occasion illness.

I must not conclude this chapter without mentioning the
curious opinions of certain Kabbalists, who distinguish be-

NECROMANCY 119

tween apparent and real death, holding that the two are
seldom simultaneous. In their idea, the majority of persons
who are buried are still alive, while a number of others who
are regarded as living are in reality dead. Incurable mad-
ness, for example, would be with them an incomplete but
real death, leaving the terrestial body under the purely in-
stinctive control of the sidereal body. When the human
soul experiences a greater blow than it can bear, it would
thus become separated from the body, leaving the animal
soul, or sidereal body, in its place, and these human remains
would be to some extent less alive really than a mere
animal. Dead persons of this kind are said to be recognised
by the complete extinction of the moral and affectionate
sense ; they are neither bad nor good ; they are dead. Such
beings, who are the poisonous fungi of the human race,
absorb the life of living beings to their fullest possible ex-
tent, and this is why their proximity benumbs the soul and
chills the heart. If such corpse-like creatures really existed,
they would realise all that was recounted in former times
about brocalaques and vampires. Now, are there not
certain persons in whose presence one feels less intelligent,
less good, sometimes even less honest ? Are there not some
whose vicinity extinguishes all faith and all enthusiasm,
who draw you by your weaknesses, who govern you by your
evil propensities, and make you die slowly to morality in a
torment like that of Mezentius ? These are dead people
whom we mistake for living beings ; these are vampires
whom we regard as friends !

120 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

14 3 0

TKANSMUTATIONS

SPHERA LUNAE SEMPITERNUM AUXILIUM

ST AUGUSTINE questioned seriously whether Apuleius could
have been changed into an ass by a Thessalian sorceress,
and theologians have long debated about the transformation
of Nebuchadnezzar into a wild beast, which things merely
prove that the eloquent doctor of Hippo was unacquainted
with magical secrets and that the theologians in question
have not advanced far in exegesis. We are concerned in
this chapter with different and more incredible marvels,
which are at the same time incontestable. I refer to lycan-
thropy, or the nocturnal transformation of men into wolves,
so celebrated in rural tales of the twilight by the histories
of were-wolves. These histories are so well attested that,
with a view to their explanation, sceptical science has
recourse to furious mania and masquerading as animals.
But such hypotheses are puerile and explain nothing. Let
us seek elsewhere for the secret of the phenomena which
have been observed on this subject, and begin with establish-
ing ; — 1, That no one has ever been killed by a were-wolf,
except by suffocation, without effusion of blood and without
wounds ; 2, That were-wolves, though tracked, pursued, and
even wounded, have never been killed on the spot ; 3, That
persons suspected of these transformations have always been
found at home, after a were-wolf chase, more or less
maimed, sometimes dying, but invariably in their natural
form.

Let us, next, establish phenomena of a different order.
Nothing in the world is better borne out by evidence than
the visible and real presence of P. Alphonsus Ligouri beside
the dying pope, whilst the same personage was simul-
taneously seen at home, far from Eome, in prayer and ecstasy.

TRANSMUTATIONS 121

Further, the simultaneous presence of the missionary Francis
Xavier in several places at one time has been no less strictly
demonstrated. It will be said that these are miracles, but
we reply that miracles when they are genuine are simply
facts for science. Apparitions of persons dear to us coinci-
dent with the moment of their death are phenomena of the
same order and attributable to the same cause. We have
spoken of the sidereal body which is intermediary between
the soul and the~physical body. Now, this body frequently
remains awake while the latter sleeps, and passes through
all space which universal magnetization opens to it. It
lengthens without breaking the sympathetic chain which
attaches it to our heart and brain, and it is for this reason
that it is so dangerous to awaken dreamers suddenly. As a
fact, too great a start may break the chain in an instant and
cause death immediately. The form of our sidereal body is
conformed to the habitual condition of our thoughts, and it
modifies, in the long run, the characteristics of the material
body. This is why Swedenborg, in his somnambulistic in-
tuitions, frequently beheld spirits in the shape of various
animals.

Let us now make bold to say that a were-wolf is nothing
else but the sidereal body of a man whose savage and
uinary instincts are typified by the wolf ; who, further,
hilst his phantom wanders over the country, is sleeping
painfully in his bed, and dreams that he is actually a wolf.
What makes the were-wolf visible is the almost somnam-
ic excitement caused by the fright of those who behold
it, or else the tendency, more particularly in simple country
persons, to enter into direct communication with the astral
light, which is the common medium of visions and dreams.
The hurts inflicted on the were-wolf really wound the sleep-
ing person by the odic and sympathetic congestion of the
astral light, and by the correspondence of the immaterial
with the material body. Many persons will believe that
they are dreaming when they read such things as these, and
will ask whether we are really ourselves awake ; but we will

sang
whil

122 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

only request men of science to reflect upon the phenomena
of gestation, and upon the influence of the imagination of
women on the form of their offspring. A woman who had
been present at the execution of a man who was broken
upon a wheel gave birth to a child with all its limbs
shattered. Let anyone explain to us how the impression
produced upon the soul of the mother by a horrible spectacle
could so have reacted on the child, and we in turn will ex-
plain why blows received in dreams can really bruise and
even grievously wound the body of him who receives them
in imagination, above all when his body is suffering and
subjected to nervous and magnetic influences.

To these phenomena and to the occult laws which govern
them must be referred the effects of bewitchment, of which
we shall speak hereafter. Diabolical obsessions, and the
majority of nervous diseases which affect the brain, are
wounds inflicted on the nervous mechanism by the astral
light when perverted, that is, absorbed or projected in
abnormal proportions. All extraordinary and extra-natural
tensions of the will predispose to obsessions and nervous
diseases ; enforced celibacy, asceticism, hatred, ambition, re-
jected love, are so many generative principles of infernal
forms and influences. Paracelsus says that the menstrua-
tions of women beget phantoms in the air, and from this
standpoint convents would be seminaries for nightmares, while
the devils might be compared to those heads of the hydra of
Lerne which were reproduced eternally and propagated in
the very blood from their wounds. The phenomena of
possession amongst the Ursulines of Loudun, so fatal to
Urban Grandier, have been misconstrued. The nuns were
really possessed by hysteria and fanatical imitation of the
secret thoughts of their exorcists, which were transmitted to
their nervous system by the astral light. They received the
impression of all the hatreds which this unfortunate priest
had conjured up against him, and this wholly interior com-
munication seemed diabolical and miraculous to themselves.
Hence in this tragical affair everyone acted sincerely, even

TRANSMUTATIONS 123

to Laubardemont, who, in his blind execution of the pre-
judged verdicts of Cardinal Richelieu, believed that he was
fulfilling at the same time the duties of a true judge, and
as little suspected himself of being a follower of Pontius
Pilate as he would have recognised in the sceptical and
libertine curd of Saint-Pierre-du Marchd, a disciple and
martyr of Christ. The possession of the nuns of Louvier is
scarcely more than a copy of those of Loudun ; the devils
invent little and plagiarise one another. The process of
Gaufridi and Magdalen de la Palud possesses stranger
features, for in this case the victims are their own accusers.
Gaufridi confessed that he was guilty of depriving a number
of women of the power to defend themselves against his
seductions by simply breathing in their nostrils. A young
and beautiful girl, of noble family, who had been thus in-
sufflated, described, in the greatest detail, scenes wherein
the unchaste seemed to vie with the monstrous and grotesque.
Such are the ordinary hallucinations of false mysticism and
ill-kept celibacy. Gaufridi and his mistress were obsessed
by their mutual chimeras, and the brain of the one reflected
the nightmares of the other. Was not the Marquis of
Sade himself infectious for certain depleted and diseased
natures ?

The scandalous trial of Father Girard is a new proof of
the deliriums of mysticism and the singular nervous affec-
tions which it may entail. The trances of la Cadiere, her
ecstacies, her stigmatas, were all as real as the insensate and
perhaps involuntary debauchery of her director. She accused
him, when he wished to withdraw from her, and the con-
version of this young woman was a revenge, for there is
nothing more cruel than depraved passions. An influential
body, which intervened in the trial of Grandier for the
destruction of the possible heretic, in this case rescued
Father Girard for the honour of the order. Moreover,
Grandier and Girard attained the same results by very
different means, with which we shall be specially con-
cerned in the sixteenth chapter.

124 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

We operate by our imagination on the imagination of
others, by our sidereal body on theirs, by our organs on
their organs, in such a way that, by sympathy, whether of
inclination or obsession, we reciprocally possess one another,
and identify ourselves with those upon whom we wish to
act. Reactions against such dominations frequently cause
the most pronounced antipathy to succeed the keenest
sympathy. Love has a tendency to unify beings; in thus
identifying, it frequently renders them rivals, and, conse-
quently, enemies, if in the depth of the two natures there
is an unsociable disposition, like pride. To permeate two
united souls in an equal degree with pride is to disjoin
them by making them rivals. Antagonism is the necessary
consequence of a plurality of gods.

When we dream of a living person, either their sidereal
body presents itself to ours in the astral light, or at least
the reflection thereof, and our impressions at the meeting
often make known the secret dispositions of the\ person in
our regard. For example, love fashions the sidereal body of
the one in the image and likeness of the other, so that the
psychal medium of the woman is like a man, and that of
the man like a woman. It was this transfer which the
Kabbalists sought to express in an occult manner when
they said, in explanation of an obscure term of Genesis : —
" God created love by placing a rib of Adam in the breast
of the woman, and a portion of the flesh of Eve in the
breast of the man, so that at the bottom of woman's heart
there is the bone of man, while at the bottom of man's
heart there is the flesh of woman," — an allegory which is
certainly not devoid of depth and beauty.

We have referred, in the previous chapter, to what the
masters in Kabbalah call the embryonic condition of souls.
This state, completed after the death of the person who
thereby possesses another, is often commenced in life,
whether by obsession or by love. I knew a young woman,
whose parents inspired her with a great terror, who took
suddenly to inflicting upon an inoffensive person the very

TRANSMUTATIONS 125

acts she dreaded in them. I knew another who, after
participating in an evocation concerned with a guilty
woman suffering in the next world for certain eccentric
acts, began to imitate, without any reason, the actions of
the dead person. To this occult power must be attributed
the terrible influence resident in parental malediction, which
is feared by all nations on earth, as also the imminent
danger of magical operations when anyone has not reached
the isolation of true adepts. This virtue of sidereal trans-
mutation, which really exists in love, explains the allegorical
marvels of the wand of Circe. Apuleius speaks of a
Thessalian woman who changed herself into a bird ; he
won the affections of her servant to discover the secrets
of the mistress, and succeeded only in transforming himself
into an ass. This allegory contains the most concealed
secrets of love. Again, the Kabbalists say that when a
man falls in love with a female elementary — undine,
sylphide, or gnomide, as the case may be — she becomes
immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. We
have already seen that elementaries are imperfect and as
yet mortal men. The revelation we have mentioned, which
has been regarded merely as a fable, is therefore the dogma
of moral solidarity in love, which is itself the foundation of
love, and alone explains all its sanctity and all its power.

10, then, is this Circe, that changes her worshippers into
swine, while, so soon as she is subjected to the bond of
love, her enchantments are destroyed ? She is the ancient
courtesan, the marble woman of all the ages. A woman who
is without love absorbs and degrades all who come near her ;
she who loves, on the other hand, diffuses enthusiasm,
nobility, and life.

There was much talk in the last century about an adept
accused of charlatanism, who was termed in his lifetime the
divine Cagliostro. It is known that he practised evocations,
and that in this art he was surpassed only by the illuminated
Schroepffer.* It is said also that he boasted of his power

* See, in the Ritual, Schrcepffer's secrets and formulas for evocation.

126 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

in binding sympathies, and that he claimed to be in pos-
session of the secret of the great work ; but that which
rendered him still more famous was a certain elixir of life,
which immediately restored to the aged the strength and
vitality of youth. The basis of this composition was mal-
voisie wine, and it was obtained by distilling the sperm of
certain animals with the sap of certain plants. We are in
possession of the recipe, but our reasons for withholding it
will be readily understood.

15 D P

BLACK MAGIC

SAMAEL AUXILIATOR

We approach the mystery of black magic. We are about
to confront, even in his own sanctuary, the black god of the
Sabbath, the formidable goat of Mendes. At this point
those who are subject to fear should close the book ; even
persons who are a prey to nervous impressions will do well
to divert themselves or to abstain. We have set ourselves
a task, and we must complete it. Let us first of all address
ourselves frankly and boldly to the question : Is there a
devil ? What is the devil ? As to the first point, science
is silent, philosophy denies it on chance, religion only answers
in the affirmative. As to the second point, religion states
that the devil is the fallen angel ; occult philosophy accepts
and explains this definition. It will be unnecessary to
repeat what we have already said on the subject ; we will
add here a further revelation : —

IN BLACK MAGIC, THE DEVIL is THE GREAT MAGICAL AGENT

EMPLOYED FOR EVIL PURPOSES BY A PERVERSE WILL.

The old serpent of the legend is nothing else than the

BLACK MAGIC 127

universal agent, the eternal fire of terrestrial life, the soul
of the earth, and the living fount of hell. We have said
that the astral light is the receptacle of forms, and these
when evoked by reason are produced harmoniously, but
when evoked by madness they appear disorderly and
monstrous ; so originated the nightmares of St Anthony
and the phantoms of the Sabbath. Do, therefore, the
evocations of goetia and demonomania possess a practical
result ? Yes, certainly — one which cannot be contested,
one more terrible than could be recounted by legends !
When any one invokes the devil with intentional cere-
monies, the devil comes, and is seen. To escape dying from
horror at the sight, to escape catalepsy or idiocy, one must
be already mad. Grandier was a libertine through indevo-
tion, and perhaps also through scepticism ; excessive zeal,
following on the aberrations of asceticism and blindness of
faith, depraved Girard, and made him deprave in his turn.
In the fifteenth chapter of our Eitual we shall give all the
diabolical evocations and practices of black magic, not that
they may be used, but that they may be known and judged,
and that such insanities may be put aside for ever.

M. Eudes de Mirville, whose book upon table-turning
made a certain sensation recently, will possibly be contented
and discontented at the same time with the solution here
given of black magic and its problems. As a fact, we
maintain, like himself, the reality and prodigious nature of
the facts ; with him also we assign them to the old serpent,
the secret prince of this world ; but we are not agreed as to
the nature of this blind agent, which, under different direc-
tions, is at once the instrument of all good and of all evil,
the minister of prophets and the inspirer of pythonesses.
In a word, the devil, for us, is force placed temporarily at
the disposal of error, even as mortal sin is, to our thinking,
the persistence of the will in what is absurd. M. de Mir-
ville is therefore a thousand times right, but he is once and
one great time wrong.

What we must exclude above all from the realm of

128 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

existences is the arbitrary. Nothing happens by chance,
nor yet by the autocracy of a good or evil will. There are
two houses in heaven, and the lower house of Satan is
restrained in its extremes by the senate of divine wisdom.

16. yQ
BEWITCHMENTS

FONS OCULUS FULGUR

WHEN a man gazes unchastely upon any woman he pro-
fanes that woman, said the Great Master. What is willed
with persistence is done. Every real will is confirmed by
acts; every will confirmed by an act is action. Every
action is subject to a judgment, and such judgment is
eternal. These are dogmas and principles from which it
follows that the good or evil which we will, to others as to
ourselves, according to the capacity of our will and within the
sphere of our action, will infallibly take place, if the will
be confirmed and the determination fixed by acts. The
acts should be analogous to the will. The intent to do
harm or to excite love, in order to be efficacious, must be
confirmed by deeds of hatred or affection. Whatsoever
bears the impression of a human soul belongs to that soul ;
whatsoever a man has appropriated after any manner be-
comes his body in the broader acceptation of the term, and
anything which is done to the body of a man is felt, medi-
ately or immediately, by his soul. It is for this reason that
every species of hostility towards one's neighbour is regarded
by moral theology as the beginning of homicide. Bewitch-
ment is a homicide, and the more infamous because it eludes
self-defence by the victim and punishment by law. This
principle being established to exonerate our conscience, and

BEWITCHMENTS 129

for the warning of the weak vessels, let us affirm boldly
that bewitchment is possible. Let us even go further and
lay down that it is not only possible, but in some sense
necessary and fatal. It is continually going on in the social
world, unconsciously both to agents and patients. Involun- .
tary bewitchment is one of the most terrible dangers of i
human life. Passional sympathy inevitably subjects the
hottest desire to the strongest will. Moral maladies are
more contagious than physical, and there are some triumphs
of infatuation and fashion which are comparable to leprosy
or cholera. We may die of an evil acquaintance as well as
of a contagious touch, and the frightful plague which, dur-
ing recent centuries only, has avenged in Europe the pro-
fanation of the mysteries of love, is a revelation of the
analogical laws of nature, and at the same time offers only
a feeble image of the moral corruptions which follow daily
on an equivocal sympathy. There is a story of a jealous
and infamous man who, to avenge himself on a rival, con-
tracted an incurable disorder, and made it the common
scourge and anathema of a divided bed. This atrocious
history is that of every magician, or rather of every sorcerer
who practises bewitchments. He poisons himself in order
that he may poison others ; he damns himself that he may
torture others ; he draws in hell with his breath in order
that he may expel it by his breath ; he wounds himself to
death that he may inflict death on others ; but possessed of
this unhappy courage, it is positive and certain that he will
poison and slay by the mere projection of his perverse will.
There are some forms of love which are as deadly as hatred,
and the bewitchments of goodwill are the torment of the
wicked. The prayers offered to God for the conversion of a
man bring misfortune to that man if he will not be con-
verted. As we have already said, it is weariness and danger
to strive against the fluidic currents occasioned by the
chains of wills in union.

Hence there are two kinds of bewitchment, voluntary
and involuntary ; physical and moral bewitchment may be

I

130 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

also distinguished. Power attracts power, life attracts life,
health attracts health; this is a law of nature. If two
children live, above all, if they sleep together, and if one be
weak while the other is strong, the strong will absorb the
weak, and the latter will waste away. For this reason, it
is important that children should always sleep alone. In
conventual seminaries certain pupils absorb the intelligence
of the others, and in every given circle of men, an individual
speedily appears who avails himself of the wills of the rest.
Bewitchment by means of currents is exceedingly common, as
we have already observed ; morally as well as physically,
most of us are carried away by the crowd. What, however,
we have proposed to exhibit more especially in this chapter
is the almost absolute power of the human will upon the
determination of its acts and the influence of every outward
demonstration upon outward things.

Voluntary bewitchments are still frequent in our rural
places because natural forces, among ignorant and isolated
persons, operate without being diminished by any doubt or
any diversion. A frank, absolute hatred, unleavened by
rejected passion or personal cupidity is, under certain given
conditions, a death-sentence for its object. I say unmixed
with amorous passion or cupidity, because a desire, being
an attraction, counterbalances and annuls the power of pro-
jection. For example, a jealous person will never effi-
caciously bewitch his rival, and a greedy heir will never by
the mere fact of his will succeed in shortening the days
of a miserly and long-lived uncle. Bewitchments attempted
under such conditions reflect upon the operator and help
rather than hurt their object, setting him free from a hostile
action which destroys itself by excessive exaggeration. The
term enw&tement (bewitchment) so strong in its Gaelic
simplicity, admirably expresses what it means, the act of
enveloping some one, so to speak, in a formulated will. The
instrument of bewitchments is the great magic agent which,
under the influence of an evil will, becomes really and
positively the demon. Witchcraft, properly so called, that is,

:

BEWITCHMENTS 131

ceremonial operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on
the operator, and serves to fix and confirm his will, by
formulating it with persistence and labour, the two condi-
tions which make volition efficacious. The more difficult or
horrible the operation, the greater is its power, because it
acts more strongly on the imagination and confirms effort in
direct ratio of resistance. This explains the bizarre nature
and even atrocious character of the operations in black magic,
as practised by the ancients and in the middle ages, the
diabolical masses, administration of sacraments to reptiles,
effusions of blood, human sacrifices, and other monstrosities,
which are the very essence and reality of goetia or nigro-
mancy. Such are the practices which from all time have
brought down upon sorcerers the just repression of the
laws. Black magic is really only a graduated combination
of sacrileges and murders designed for the permanent per-
version of a human will and for the realisation in a living
man of the hideous phantom of the demon. It is, there-
fore, properly speaking, the religion of the devil, the cultus
of darkness, hatred of good carried to the height of paroxysm ;
it is the incarnation of death, and the persistent creation of
hell.

The Kabbalist Bodin, who has been erroneously con-
sidered of a feeble and superstitious mind, had no other
motive in writing his Demonomania than that of warning
people against dangerous incredulity. Initiated by the study
f the Kabbalah into the true secrets of magic, he trembled
,t the danger to which society was exposed by the aban-
donment of this power to the wickedness of men. Hence
he attempted what at the present time M. Eudes de Mirville
is attempting amongst ourselves ; he gathered facts without
interpreting them, and affirmed in the face of inattentive or
pre-occupied science the existence of the occult influences
and criminal operations of evil magic. In his own day
Bodin received no more attention than will be given to
M. Eudes de Mirville, because it is not enough to indicate
phenomena and to prejudge their cause if we would influ-

132 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ence earnest men ; we must study, explain, and demonstrate
such cause, and this is precisely what we are ourselves
attempting. Will better success crown our own efforts ?

It is possible to die through the love of certain people as
by their hate ; there are absorbing passions, under the breath
of which we feel ourselves depleted like the spouses of
vampires. Not only do the wicked torment the good, but
unconsciously the good torture the wicked. The gentleness
of Abel was a long and painful bewitchment for the ferocity
of Cain. Among evil men, the hatred of good originates in
the very instinct of self-preservation ; moreover, they deny
that what torments them is good, and, for their own peace,
are driven to deify and justify evil. In the sight of Cain,
Abel was a hypocrite and coward, who abused the pride of
humanity by his scandalous submissions to divinity. How
much must this first murderer have endured before making
such a frightful attack upon his brother ? Had Abel under-
stood, he would have been afraid. Antipathy is the pre-
sentiment of a possible bewitchment, either of love or
hatred, for we find love frequently succeeding repulsion.
The astral light warns us of coming influences by its action
on the more or less sensible, more or less active, nervous sys-
tem. Instantaneous sympathies, electric loves, are explosions
of the astral light, which are as exactly and mathematically
demonstrable as the discharge of strong magnetic batteries.
Thereby we may see what unexpected dangers threaten an
uninitiated person who is perpetually fooling with fire in the
neighbourhood of invisible powder-mines. We are saturated
with the astral light, and we project it unceasingly to make
room for and to attract fresh supplies. The nervous in-
struments, which are specially designed either for attraction
or projection, are the eyes and hands. The polarity of the
hands is resident in the thumb, and hence, according to the
magical tradition which still lingers in rural places, when-
ever anyone is in suspicious company, he should keep the
thumb doubled up and hidden in the hand, and while in
the main avoiding a fixed glance at any one, still being the

BEWITCHMENTS 133

first to look at those whom we have reason to fear, so
as to escape unexpected fluidic projections and fascinating
regards.

There are certain animals which have the power of break-
ing the currents of astral light by an absorption peculiar to
themselves. They are violently antipathetic to us, and
possess a certain sorcery of the eye : the toad, the basilisk,
and the tard are instances. These animals, when tamed
and carried alive on the person, or kept in occupied rooms,
are a guarantee against the hallucinations and trickeries of
ASTRAL INTOXICATION, a term we make use of here for the
first time, one which explains all the phenomena of un-
bridled passions, mental exaltations, and folly. Tame toads
and tards, my dear sir, the disciple of Voltaire will say to
me; carry them about with you, and write no more. To
which I may answer, that I shall seriously think of doing
so as soon as ever I feel tempted to laugh at anything I do
not understand, and to treat those whose knowledge and
wisdom I fail to understand, as fools or as madmen.
Paracelsus, the greatest of the Christian magi, opposed
bewitchment by the practices of a contrary bewitchment.
He composed sympathetic remedies, and applied them, not
to the suffering members, but to representations of those
members, formed and consecrated according to magical cere-
monial. His successes were incredible, and never has any
physician approached Paracelsus in his marvels of healing.
But Paracelsus had discovered magnetism long before
Mesmer, and had carried to its final consequences this
luminous discovery, or rather this initiation into the magic
of the ancients, who better than us understood the great
magical agent, and did not regard the astral light, azoth,
the universal magnesia of the sages, as an animal and a
special fluid emanating only from particular creatures. In
his occult philosophy, Paracelsus opposes ceremonial magic,
the terrible power of which he certainly did not ignore, but
he sought to decry its practices so as to discredit black
magic. He locates the omnipotence of the magus in the

134 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

interior and occult magnes, and the most skilful magnetisers
of our own day could not express themselves better. At
the same time he counselled the employment of magical
symbols, talismans above all, in the cure of diseases. In our
eighteenth chapter we shall have occasion to return to the
talismans of Paracelsus, while following Gaffarel upon the
great question of occult iconography and numismatics.

Bewitchment may also be cured by substitution, when
that is possible, and by the rupture or deflection of the
astral current. The rural traditions on all these points are
admirable, and undoubtedly of remote antiquity ; they are
remnants of the instruction of the Druids, who were
initiated in the mysteries of Egypt and India by wandering
hierophants. Now, it is well known in vulgar magic that a
bewitchment — that is, a will persistently confirmed in ill
doing, invariably has its result, and cannot draw back with-
out risk of death. The sorcerer who liberates any one from
a charm must have another object for his malevolence, or it
is certain that he himself will be smitten, and will perish as
the victim of his own spells. The astral movement being
circular, every azotic or magnetic emission which does not
encounter its medium returns with force to its point of de-
parture, thus explaining one of the strangest histories in a
sacred book, that of the demons sent into the swine, which
thereupon cast themselves into the sea. This act of high
initiation was nothing else but the rupture of a magnetic
current infected by evil wills. Our name is legion, for we
are many, said the instinctive voice of the possessed sufferer.
Possessions by the demon are bewitchments, and such cases
are innumerable at the present day. A holy monk who
has devoted himself to the service of the insane, Brother
Hilarion Tissot, has succeeded, by long experience and in-
cessant practice, in curing a number of patients, by uncon-
sciously using the magnetism of Paracelsus. He attributes
most of his cases either to disorder of the will or to the
perverse influence of external wills ; he regards all crimes
as acts of madness, and would treat the wicked as diseased,

BEWITCHMENTS 135

instead of exasperating and making them incurable, under
the pretence of punishing them. What space of time must
still elapse ere poor Brother Hilarion Tissot shall be hailed
as a man of genius ! And how many serious men, when
they read this chapter, will say that Tissot and myself
should treat one another according to our common ideas,
but should refrain from publishing our theories, if we do
not wish to be reckoned as physicians worthy of a hospital
for incurables ! It revolves, notwithstanding, said Galileo,
stamping his foot upon the earth. Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free, said the Saviour
of men. It might also be added : Ye shall love justice, and
justice shall make you whole men. A vice is a poison, even
for the body ; true virtue is a pledge of longevity.

The method of ceremonial bewitchments varies with times
and persons ; all subtle and domineering people find its
secrets and its practice within themselves, without even
actually calculating about them or reasoning on their
sequence. Herein they follow instinctive inspirations of
the great agent, which, as we have already said, accommo-
dates itself marvellously to our vices and our virtues; it
may, however, be generally laid down that we are subjected
to the wills of others by the analogies of our tendencies,
and above all, of our faults. To pamper the weaknesses of
an individuality is to possess ourselves of that individuality
and convert it into an instrument in the order of the same
errors or depravities. Now, when two natures whose defects
are analogous become subordinated one to another, the result
is a sort of substitution of the stronger for the weaker, an
actual obsession of one mind by the other. Very often the
weaker may struggle and seek to revolt, but it only falls
deeper in servitude. So did Louis XIII. conspire against
Richelieu, and subsequently, so to speak, sought his pardon
by abandoning his accomplices. We have all a ruling defect,
which is for our soul as the umbilical cord of its sinful birth,
and it is by this the enemy can always seize us — for some
vanity, for others idleness, for the majority egotism. Let a

136 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

wicked and crafty mind avail itself of this snare and we are
lost ; we may not go mad or turn idiots, but we become
positively alienated, in all the force of the expression — that
is, we are subjected to a foreign impulsion. In such a state
one dreads instinctively everything that might bring us
back to reason, and will not even listen to representations
that are opposed to our infatuation. Here is one of the
most dangerous disorders which can affect the moral nature.
The sole remedy for such a bewitchment is to make use of
madness itself in order to cure madness, to provide the
sufferer with imaginary satisfactions in the opposite order
to that wherein he is now immersed. Endeavour, for
example, to cure an ambitious person by making him desire
the glories of heaven — mystic remedy; cure one who is
dissolute by true love — natural remedy; obtain honourable
successes for a vain person ; exhibit unselfishness to the
avaricious, and procure for them legitimate profit by honour-
able participation in generous enterprises, &c. Acting in
this way upon the moral nature, we may succeed in curing
a number of physical maladies, for the moral affects the
physical in virtue of the magical axiom : — " That which is
above is like that which is below." This is why the Master
said, when speaking of the paralysed woman: Satan has
bound her. A disease invariably originates in a deficiency
or an excess, and ever at the root of a physical evil we
shall find a moral disorder. This is an unchanging law of
nature.

ASTROLOGY 137

17 D R

ASTROLOGY

STELLA OS INFLEXUS

OF all the arts which have originated in ancient magian
wisdom astrology is now the most misunderstood. No one
believes any longer in the universal harmonies of nature
and in the necessary interlacing of all effects with all causes.
Moreover, true astrology, that which connects with the
unique and universal dogma of the Kabbalah, became pro-
faned among the Greeks and among the Romans of the
decline. The doctrine of the seven spheres and the three
mobilies, primitively issuing from the sephirotic decade,
the character of the planets governed by angels, whose
names have been changed into those of Pagan divinities, the
influence of the spheres on one another, the destiny attached
to numbers, the scale of proportion between the celestial
hierarchies corresponding to the human hierarchies — all this
has been materialised and degraded into superstition by
genethliacal soothsayers and erecters of horoscopes during
the decline and the middle ages. The restoration of astro-
logy to its primitive purity would be, in a sense, the creation
of an entirely new science ; here let us attempt merely to
indicate its first principles, with their more immediate and
approximate consequences.

We have said that the astral light receives and preserves
the impressions of all visible things ; it follows from this
that the daily position of the heaven is reflected in this light,
which, being the chief agent of life, operates the conception,
gestation, and birth of children by a sequence of apparatuses
naturally designed to this end. Now, if this light be
sufficiently prodigal of images to impart to the fruit of the
womb the visible imprints of a maternal fantasy or appetite,
still more will it transmit to the plastic and indeterminate

138 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

temperament of a newly-born child the atmospheric im-
pressions and diverse influences which, in the entire
planetary system, are consequent at a given moment upon
such or such particular aspect of the stars. Nothing is
indifferent in nature ; a stone more or a stone less upon a
road may break or completely modify the destinies of the
greatest men or even the largest empires ; still more must
the position of this or that star in the sky have an influence
on the child who is born, who enters by the very fact of his
birth into the universal harmony of the sidereal world.
The stars are bound to one another by the attractions which
hold them in equilibrium and cause them to move with
uniformity through space. From all spheres unto all
spheres there stretch these indestructible threads of light,
and there is no point upon any planet to which one of them
is not attached. The true adept in astrology must, therefore,
give heed to the precise time and place of the birth which
is in question ; then, after an exact calculation of the astral
influences, it remains for him to compute the chances of
estate, that is to say, the advantages or hindrances which
the child must one day meet with by reason of position,
relatives, inherited tendencies, and hence natural proclivities,
in the fulfilment of his destinies. Finally, he will still have
to take into consideration human liberty and its initiative,
should the child eventually come to be a true man, and to
isolate himself by an intrepid will from fatal influences and
from the chain of destiny. It will be seen that we do not
allow too much to astrology, but so much as we leave it is
indubitable ; it is the scientific and magical calculus of
probabilities.

Astrology is as ancient as astronomy, and indeed it is
more ancient ; all seers of lucid antiquity have accorded it
their fullest confidence ; now, we must not condemn and
reject in a shallow manner anything which comes before us
protected and supported by such imposing authorities. Long
and patient observations, conclusive comparisons, frequently
repeated experiences, must have led the old sages to their

J.1J

an
an
en

ASTROLOGY 139

decisions, and to refute them the same labour must be
undertaken from an opposite standpoint. Paracelsus was
perhaps the last of the great practical astrologers ; he cured
diseases by talismans formed under astral influences ; he
distinguished upon all bodies the mark of their dominant
star ; there, according to him, was the true universal
medicine, the absolute science of nature, lost by man's own
fault, and recovered only by a small number of initiates.
To recognise the sign of each star upon men, animals, and
plants, is the true natural science of Solomon, that science
which is said to be lost, but the principles of which are pre-
served notwithstanding, as are all other secrets, in the symbol-
ism of the Kabbalah. It will be readily understood that in
order to read the stars one must know the stars themselves ;
now, this knowledge is obtained by the kabbalistic domi-
fication of the sky and by the understanding of the celestial
planisphere, recovered and explained by Gaffarel. In this
planisphere the constellations form Hebrew letters, and the
mythological figures may be replaced by the symbols of the
Tarot. To this same planisphere Gaffarel refers the origin
of patriarchal writing, and in the chains of starry attraction
the first lineaments of primitive characters may very well
have been found, in which case the celestial book would
have served as the model of Henoch's, and the kabbalistic
alphabet would have been the synopsis of the entire sky.
This is not wanting in poetry, nor, above all, in probability,
and the study of the Tarot, which is evidently the primitive

.d hieroglyphic work of Henoch, as was divined by the
erudite William Postel, is sufficient to convince us hereof.

The signs imprinted in the astral light by the reflection
and attraction of the stars is reproduced, therefore, as the
sages have discovered, on all bodies which are formed by the
conjunction of that light. Men bear the signs of their star
on their forehead chiefly, and in their hands ; animals in
their whole form, and in their individual signs ; plants in
their leaves and seed ; minerals in their veins and their
grain. The study of these characters was the entire life-

140 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

work of Paracelsus, and the figures on his talismans are the
result of his researches ; he has, however, left us no key to
them, so that the astral kabbalistic alphabet with its corre-
spondences still remains to be done; as regards publicity,
the science of unconventional magical writing stopped with
the planisphere of Gaffarel. The serious art of divination
rests wholly in the knowledge of these signs. Chiromancy
is the art of reading the writing of the stars in the lines of
the hand, and physiognomy seeks the same or analogous
characters upon the countenance of its inquirers. As a fact,
the lines formed on the human face by nervous contractions
are determined fatally, and the radiation of the nervous
tissue is absolutely analogous to those networks which are
formed between the worlds by the chains of starry attraction.
The fatalities of life are, therefore, written necessarily in our
wrinkles, and a first glance frequently reveals upon the fore-
head of a stranger either one or more of the mysterious
letters of the kabbalistic planisphere. Should the letter be
jagged and laboriously inscribed, there has been a struggle
between will and fatality, and in his most powerful emotions
and tendencies, the individual's entire past manifests to the
rnagus ; from this it becomes easy to conjecture the future,
and if events occasionally deceive the sagacity of the
diviner, he who has consulted him will remain none the
less astounded and convinced by the superhuman knowledge
of the adept.

The human head is formed upon the model of the celestial
spheres ; it attracts and it radiates, and in the conception of
a child, this it is which first forms and manifests. Hence
the head is subject in an absolute manner to astral influ-
ence, and evidences its several attractions by its diverse
protuberances. The final word of phrenology is to be found,
therefore, in scientific and purified astrology, the problems
of which we point out to the patience and good faith of
scholars.

According to Ptolemy, the sun dries up and the moon
moistens ; according to the kabbalists, the sun represents

ASTROLOGY 141

rigorous Justice, while the moon is in sympathy with
Mercy. It is the sun which produces storms, and, by a
kind of gentle atmospheric pressure, the moon occasions the
ebb and flow, or, as it were, the respiration of the sea. We
read in the Zohar, one of the great sacred books of the
Kabbalah, that " the magical serpent, the son of the Sun, was
about to devour the world, when the Sea, daughter of the
Moon, set her foot upon his head and subdued him." For
this reason, among the ancients, Venus was the daughter of
the Sea, as Diana was identical with the Moon. Hence
also the name of Mary signifies star or salt of the sea. To
consecrate this kabbalistic doctrine in the belief of the
vulgar, it is said in prophetic language : The woman shall
crush the serpent's head.

Jerome Cardan, one of the boldest students, and, beyond
contradiction the most skilful astrologer of his time — Jerome
Cardan, who, if we accept the legend of his death, was a
martyr to his faith in astrology, has left behind him a
calculation by means of which any one can foresee the good
or evil fortune special to all the years of his life. His
theory was based upon his own experiences, and he assures
us that the calculation never deceived him. To ascertain
the fortune of a given year, he sums up the events of those
which have preceded it by 4, 8, 12, 19, and 30 ; the number
4 is that of realisation ; 8 is the number of Venus or natural
things ; 1 2 belongs to the cycle of Jupiter, and corresponds
to successes ; 1 9 has reference to the cycles of the Moon
and of Mars ; the number 3 0 is that of Saturn or Fatality.
Thus, for example, I desire to ascertain what will befall me
in this present year 1855 ; I pass in review the decisive
events in the order of life and progress which occurred four
years ago ; the natural felicity or misfortune of eight years
back ; the successes or failures of twelve years since ; the
vicissitudes and miseries or diseases which overtook me
nineteen years from now, and my tragic or fatal experiences
of thirty years back. Then, taking into account irrevocably
accomplished facts and the advance of time, I calculate the

142 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

chances analogous to those which I owe already to the in-
fluence of the same planets, and I conclude that in 1851 I
had employment which was moderately but sufficiently re-
munerative, with some embarrassment of position ; in 1847
I was violently separated from my family, with great
attendant sufferings for mine and me ; in 1843 I travelled
as an apostle, addressing the people, and suffering the per-
secution of ill -meaning persons; briefly, I was at once
honoured and proscribed. Finally, in 1825 family life
came to an end for me, and I engaged definitely in a
fatal path which led me to science and misfortune. I may
therefore suppose that I shall this year experience toil,
poverty, vexation, heart-exile, change of place, publicity,
and contradictions, with some eventuality which will be
decisive for the rest of my life ; every indication in the
present leads me to endorse this forecast. Hence I con-
clude that, for myself and for this year, experience com-
pletely confirms the precision of Cardan's astrological
calculus, which, furthermore, connects with the climacteric
years of ancient astrologers. This term signifies arranged in
scales or calculated on the degrees of a scale. Johannes
Trithemius in his book on Secondary Causes has very
curiously computed the return of fortunate or calamitous
years for all the empires of the world. In the twenty-first
chapter of our Eitual we shall give an exact analysis of this
work, one even more clear than the original, together with a
continuation of the labour of Trithemius to our own days
and the application of his magical scale to contemporary
events, so as to deduce the most striking probabilities
relative to the immediate future of France, Europe, and
the world.

According to all the grand masters in astrology, comets
are the stars of exceptional heroes, and they only visit earth
to signalise great changes ; the planets preside over collec-
tive existences and modify the destinies of mankind in the
aggregate ; the fixed stars, more remote and more feeble in
their action, attract individuals and determine their ten-

ASTROLOGY 143

dencies ; sometimes a group of stars combine to influence
the destinies of a single man, while often a great number of
souls are drawn by the distant rays of the same sun. When
we die, our interior light in departing follows the attraction
of its star, and thus it is that we live again in other
universes, where the soul makes for itself a new garment,
analogous to the development or diminution of its beauty ;
for our souls, when separated from our bodies, resemble
revolving stars ; they are globules of animated light which
always seek their centre for the recovery of their equili-
brium and their true movement. Before all things, however,
they must liberate themselves from the folds of the serpent,
that is, the unpurified astral light which envelopes and
imprisons them, unless the strength of their will can lift
them beyond its reach. The immersion of the living star in
the dead light is a frightful torment, comparable to that of
Mezentius. Therein the soul freezes and burns at the same
time, and has no means of getting free except by re-entering
the current of exterior forms and assuming a fleshly
envelope, then energetically battling against instincts to
strengthen that moral liberty which will permit it at the
moment of death to break the chains of earth and wing its
flight in triumph towards the star of consolation which has
smiled in light upon it. Following this clue, we can under-
stand the nature of the fire of hell, which is identical with
the demon or the old serpent ; we can gather also wherein
consist the salvation and reprobation of men, all called and
all successively elected, but in small number, after having
risked falling into the eternal fire through their own fault.

Such is the great and sublime revelation of the magi, a
revelation which is the mother of all symbols, of all dogmas,
of all religions. We can realise already how far Dupuis
was mistaken in regarding astronomy as the source of every
cultus. It is astronomy, on the contrary, which has sprung
from astrology, and primitive astrology is one of the branches
of the holy Kabbalah, the science of sciences, and the
religion of religions. Hence upon the seventeenth page of

144 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the Tarot we find an admirable allegory — a naked woman,
typifying Truth, Nature, and Wisdom at one and the same
time, turns two ewers towards the earth, and pours out fire
and water upon it ; above her head glitters the septenary,
starred about an eight-pointed star, that of Venus, symbol
of peace and love ; the plants of earth are flourishing around
the woman, and on one of them the butterfly of Psyche has
alighted ; this emblem of the soul is replaced in some copies
of the sacred book by a bird, which is a more Egyptian and
probably a more ancient symbol. In the modern Tarot the
plate is entitled the Glittering Star ; it is analogous to a
number of Hermetic symbols, and is also in correspondence
with the Blazing Star of Masonic initiates, which expresses
most of the mysteries of Eosicrucian secret doctrine.

18 v S
CHAKMS AND PHILTEES

JUSTITIA MYSTERIUM CANES

WE have now to grapple with the most criminal abuse to
which magical sciences can be put, namely, venomous magic,
or, rather, sorcery. Let it be here understood that we write
not to instruct but to warn. If human justice, instead of
punishing the adepts, had only proscribed the nigromancers
and poisoning sorcerers, it is certain, as we have previously
remarked, that its severity would have been well placed,
and that the most severe penalties could never be excessive
in the case of such criminals. At the same time it must not
be supposed that the right of life and death which secretly
belongs to the magus has always been exercised to satisfy
some infamous vengeance, or some cupidity more infamous
still ; in the middle ages, as in the ancient world, magical

CHARMS AND PHILTRES ].

associations have frequently struck down or destroyed slowly
the revealers or profaners of mysteries, and when the magic
.sword has refrained from striking, when the spilling of blood
was dangerous, then Aqua Toffana, poisoned nosegays, the
shirt of Nessus, and other deadly instruments, still stranger
and still less known, were used to carry out sooner or later
the terrible sentence of the free judges. We have said that
there is in magic a great and indicible arcanum, which is
never mentioned among adepts, which the profane above
all must be prevented from divining ; in former times,
whosoever revealed, or caused the key of this supreme
secret to be discovered by others through imprudent
revelations, was condemned immediately to death, and
was often driven to execute the sentence himself. The
celebrated prophetic supper of Cazotte, described by Laharpe,
has not been hitherto understood. Laharpe very naturally
yielded to the temptation of surprising his readers by ampli-
fying the details of his narrative. Everyone present at this
supper, Laharpe excepted, was an initiate and a divulger, or
at least profaner, of the mysteries. Cazotte, the most
exalted of all in the scale of initiation, pronounced their
sentence of death in the name of illuminism, and this
sentence was variously but rigorously executed, even as
several years and several centuries previously had occurred
in the case of similar judgments against the Abbe* de Villars,
Urban Grandier, and many others. The revolutionary
philosophers perished as did Cagliostro deserted in the
prisons of the Inquisition, as did the mystic band of
Catherine Theos, as did the imprudent Scroepfer, con-
strained to suicide in the midst of his magical triumphs and
the universal infatuation, as did the deserter Kotzebue, who
was stabbed by Carl Sand, as did also so many others whose
corpses have been discovered without any one being able to
learn the cause of their sudden and sanguinary death. The
strange allocation addressed to Cazotte when he himself was
condemned by the president of the revolutionary tribunal
will be readily called to mind. The Gordian Knot of the

146 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

terrible drama of '93 is still concealed in the darkest
sanctuary of the secret societies ; to adepts of good faith,
who sought to emancipate the common people, were opposed
adepts of another sect, attached to more ancient traditions,
who fought by means analogous to those of their adversaries :
the practice of the great arcanum was made impossible by
unmasking its theory. The crowd understood nothing, but
it mistrusted everything, and fell lower still in its dis-
couragement ; the great arcanum became more secret than
ever ; the adepts, checkmated by each other, could exercise
their power neither to govern others nor to deliver them-
selves ; they condemned one another to the death of traitors ;
they abandoned one another to exile, to suicide, to the knife
and the scaffold.

I shall be asked possibly whether equally terrible dangers
threaten at this day the intruders into the occult sanctuary
and the betrayers of its secret. Why should I answer any-
thing to the incredulity of the inquisitive ? If I risk a
violent death for their instruction, certainly they will not
save me ; if they are afraid on their own account, let them
abstain from imprudent research — this is all I can say to
them. Let us return to venomous magic.

In his romance of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas has
revealed some practices of this ominous science. There is
no need to traverse the same ground by repeating its
melancholy theories of crime; describing how plants are
poisoned ; how animals nourished on these plants have their
flesh infected, and becoming in turn the food of men, cause
death without leaving any trace of poison ; how the walls
of houses are inoculated ; how the air is permeated by fumes
which require the glass mask of St Croix for the operator ;
let us leave the ancient Canidia her abominable mysteries,
and refrain from investigating the extent to which the in-
fernal rites of Sagana have carried the art of Locusta. It is
enough to state that this most infamous class of malefactors
distilled in conjunction the virus of contagious diseases, the
venom of reptiles, and the sap of poisonous plants, that they

CHARMS AND PHILTRES 147

extracted from the fungus its deadly and narcotic properties,
its asphyxiating principles from datura stramonium, from the
peach and bitter almond that poison one drop of which,
placed on the tongue or in the ear, destroys, like a flash of
lightning, the strongest and best constituted living being.
The white juice of sea-lettuce was boiled with milk in which
vipers and asps had been drowned. The sap of the man-
chineel or deadly fruit of Java was either brought back with
them from their long journeys, or imported at great expense ;
so also was the juice of the cassada, and so were similar
poisons ; they pulverised flint, mixed with impure ashes the
dried slime of reptiles, composed hideous philtres with the
virus of mares on heat and similar secretions of bitches ;
they mingled human blood with infamous drugs, composing
an oil the mere odour of which was fatal, therein recalling
the tarte bourbonnaise of Panurge ; they even concealed
recipes for poisoning in the technical language of alchemy,
and the secret of the powder of projection, in more than one
old book which claims to be Hermetic, is in reality that of
the powder of succession. The Grand Grimoire gives one
in particular which is very thinly disguised under the title
of Method for Making Gold; it is an atrocious decoction
of verdigris, arsenic, and sawdust, which, if properly made,
should immediately consume a branch that is plunged into
it and eat swiftly through an iron nail. John Baptista
Porta cites in his Natural Magic a specimen of Borgia poison,
but, as may be imagined, he is deceiving the vulgar, and
does not divulge the truth, which would be too dangerous
in such a connection. We may therefore quote his recipe
to satisfy the curiosity of our readers.

The toad by itself is not venomous, but it is a sponge for
poisons, and is the mushroom of the animal kingdom. Take,
then, a plump toad, says Porta, and place it with vipers
and asps in a globular bottle ; let poison'ous fungi, fox-gloves,
and hemlock be their sole nourishment during a period of
several days; then enrage them by beating, burning, and
tormenting them in every conceivable manner, till they die

148 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

of rage and hunger; sprinkle their bodies with powdered
spurge and ground glass ; then place them in a well-sealed
retort, and extract all their moisture by fire. Let the glass
cool ; separate the ash of the dead bodies from the incom-
bustible dust, which will remain at the bottom of the retort.
You will then have two poisons — one liquid, the other a
powder. The first will be fully as efficacious as the terrible
Aqua Poffana ; the second, in a few days' time, will cause
any person, who may have a pinch of it mixed with his
drink, to become, in the first place, wilted and old, and
subsequently to die amidst horrible sufferings, or in a state
of complete collapse. It must be admitted that this recipe
has a magical physiognomy of the blackest and most revolt-
ing kind, and sickens one by its recollections of the abomin-
able confections of Canidia and Medea. The sorcerers of
the middle ages pretended to receive such powders at the
Sabbath, and sold them at a high price to the malicious and
ignorant. The tradition of similar mysteries spread terror
in country places, and came to act as a spell. The imagina-
tion once impressed, the nervous system once assailed, and
then the victim rapidly wasted away, the very dread of his
relatives and friends insuring his loss. The sorcerer or
sorceress was almost invariably a species of human toad,
swollen with long-enduring rancours. They were poor, re-
pulsed by all, and consequently full of hatred. The fear
which they inspired was their consolation and their revenge ;
poisoned themselves by a society of which they had ex-
perienced nothing but the refuse and the vices, they
poisoned in their turn all those who were weak enough
to fear them, and avenged upon beauty and youth their
accursed old age and their atrocious ugliness. The mere
operation of these evil works, and the fulfilment of these
loathsome mysteries, constituted and confirmed what was
then called a compact with the devil. It is certain that
the worker must have been given over body and soul to
evil, and justly deserved the universal and irrevocable
reprobation expressed by the allegory of hell. That human

CHARMS AND PHILTRES 149

souls could descend to such an abyss of crime and madness
must assuredly astonish and grieve us ; but is not such an
abyss needed as a basis for the exaltation of the most sub-
lime virtues ? and does not the depth of infernus demon-
strate by antithesis the infinite height and grandeur of
heaven ?

In the North, where the instincts are more repressed and
vivacious ; in Italy, where the passions are more diffusive
and fiery, charms and the evil eye are still dreaded; the
jettatura is not to be braved with impunity in Naples, and
persons who are unfortunately endowed with this power
are even distinguished by certain exterior signs. In order
to guard against it, experts affirm that horns must be carried
on the person, and the common people, who take everything
literally, hasten to adorn themselves with small horns, not
dreaming of the sense of the allegory. These attributes of
Jupiter Ammon, Bacchus, and Moses are the symbol of
moral power or enthusiasm, so that the magicians mean to
say that, in order to withstand the jettatura, the fatal cur-
rent of instincts must be governed by a great intrepidity,
a great enthusiasm, or a great thought. In like manner,
almost all popular superstitions are profane interpretations
of some grand maxim or marvellous secret of occult wisdom.
Did not Pythagoras, in his admirable symbols, bequeath a
perfect philosophy to sages, and a new series of vain
observances and ridiculous practices to the vulgar ? Thus,
when he said : " Do not pick up what falls from the table ;
do not cut down trees on the great highway ; kill not the
serpent when it falls into your garden," — was he not incul-
cating the precepts of charity, either social or personal,
under transparent allegories ? When he said : " Do not
look at yourself by torchlight in a mirror," was he not
ingeniously teaching true self-knowledge which is incom-
patible with factitious lights and the prejudgments of
systems ? It is the same with the other precepts of
Pythagoras, who, it is well known, was followed literally
by a swarm of unintelligent disciples, and, indeed, amongst

150 THE DOCTKINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

our provincial superstitious observances, there are many
which indubitably belong to the primitive misconception
of Pythagorean symbols.

Superstition is derived from a Latin word which signifies
survival. It is the sign surviving the thought ; it is the
dead body of a religious rite. Superstition is to initiation
what the notion of the devil is to that of God. This is the
sense in which the worship of images is forbidden, and in
this sense also a doctrine most holy in its original concep-
tion may become superstitious and impious when it has lost
its spirit and its inspiration. Then does religion, ever one,
like the supreme reason, change its vestures and abandon
old rites to the cupidity and roguery of priests dispossessed
and metamorphosed by their wickedness and ignorance into
jugglers and charlatans. We may include among supersti-
tions those magical emblems and characters, of which the
meaning is no longer understood, which are engraved by
chance on amulets and talismans. The magical images of
the ancients were pantacles, i.e., kabbalistic syntheses.
Thus the wheel of Pythagoras is a pantacle analogous to the
wheels of Ezekiel ; the two figures contain the same secrets,
and belong to the same philosophy ; they constitute the key
of all pantacles, and we have already discoursed concerning
them.

The four beasts, or, rather, the four-headed sphinx of the
same prophet are identical with an admirable Indian symbol
which we have reproduced in this work, as having reference
to the great arcanum. In his Apocalypse, St John followed
and elaborated Ezekiel ; indeed, the monstrous figures of his
wonderful book are so many magical pantacles, the key of
which is easily discoverable by kabbalists. On the other
hand, Christians, rejecting science in their anxiety to
extend faith, sought later on to conceal the origin of their
dogmas, and condemned all kabbalistic and magical books
to the flames. To destroy originals gives a kind of origin-
ality to copies, as was doubtless in the mind of St Paul
when, prompted beyond question by the most laudable

152 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

intention, he accomplished his scientific auto-da-fe" at
Ephesus. In the same way, six centuries later, the true
believer Omar sacrificed the Library of Alexandria to the
originality of the Koran, and who knows whether in the
time to come some future Apostle will not set fire to our
literary museums, and confiscate the printing-press in the
interest of some fresh religious infatuation, some newly
accredited legend ?

The study of talismans and pantacles is one of the most
curious branches of magic, and connects with historical
numismatics. There are Indian, Egyptian, and Greek talis-
mans, kabbalistic medals coming from the ancient and
modern Jews, Gnostic abraxas, occult tokens in use among
the members of secret societies, and sometimes called
counters of the Sabbath ; so also there are Templar medals
and jewels of Freemasonry. In his Treatise on the Wonders
of Nature, Coglenius describes the talismans of Solomon and
those of Rabbi Chael. Designs of many others that are
most ancient will be found in the magical calendars of
Tycho-Brahe' and Duchentau, and should have a place in
M. Ragon's archives of initiation, a vast and scholarly
undertaking, to which we refer our readers.

19 p T

THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS—
ELAGABALUS

VOCATIO SOL AURUM

THE ancients adored the Sun under the figure of a black
stone, which they named Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. What
did this stone signify, and how came it to be the image of
the most brilliant of luminaries ? The disciples of Hermes,

THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 153

before promising their adepts the elixir of long life, or the
powder of projection, counselled them to seek for the philo-
sophical stone. What is this stone, and why a stone ? The
great initiator of the Christians invites his believers to build
on the stone, or rock, if they do not wish their structures to
be demolished. He terms himself the corner-stone, and
says to the most faithful of his Apostles, " Thou art Peter
(petnis), and upon this rock (petram) I will build my
church." This stone, say the masters in alchemy, is the
true salt of the philosophers, which is the third ingredient
in the composition of Azoth. Now, we know already that
AZOTH is the name of the great Hermetic and true philo-
sophical agent ; furthermore, their salt is represented under
the figure of a cubic stone, as may be seen in the Twelve
Keys of Basil Valentine, or in the allegories of Trevisan.
Once more, what is this stone actually ? It is the founda-
tion of absolute philosophy, it is supreme and immovable
reason. Before even dreaming of the metallic work,
we must be fixed for ever upon the absolute prin-
ciples of wisdom, we must possess that reason which
is the touch-stone of truth. Never will a man of
prejudices become the king of nature and the master of
transmutations. The philosophical stone is hence before all
things necessary ; but how is it to be found ? Hermes in-
forms us in his Emerald Table. We must separate the
subtle from the fixed with great care and assiduous atten-
tion. Thus, we must separate our certitudes from our
beliefs, and sharply distinguish the respective domains of
science and faith, understanding thoroughly that we do not
know things which we believe, and that we cease immedi-
ately to believe anything which we come actually to know,
so that the essence of the things of faith is the unknown
and the indefinite, while it is quite the reverse with the
things of science. It must thence be inferred that science
rests on reason and experience, whilst the basis of faith is
Sentiment and reason. In other words, the philosophical
stone is the true certitude which human prudence assures to

154 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

conscientious researches and modest doubt, whilst religious
enthusiasm ascribes it exclusively to faith. Now, it belongs
neither to reason without aspirations nor to aspirations with-
out reason ; 'true certitude is the reciprocal acquiescence of
the reason which knows in the sentiment which believes and
of the sentiment which believes in the reason which knows.
The permanent alliance of reason and faith will result not
from their absolute distinction and separation, but from their
mutual control and their fraternal concurrence. Such is the
significance of the two pillars of Solomon's porch, one named
Jakin and the other Bohas, one black and the other white.
They are distinct and separate, they are even contrary in
appearance, but if blind force sought to join them by bring-
ing them close to one another, the roof of the temple would
collapse ; separately, their power is one ; joined, they are
two powers which destroy one another. For precisely the
same reason the spiritual power is weakened whensoever it
attempts to usurp the temporal, while the temporal power
becomes the victim of its encroachments on the spiritual.
Gregory VII. ruined the Papacy ; the schismatic kings have
lost and will lose the monarchy. Human equilibrium re-
quires two feet, the worlds gravitate by means of two forces,
generation needs two sexes. Such is the meaning of the
arcanum of Solomon, represented by the two pillars of the
temple, Jakin and Bohas.

The sun and moon of the alchemists correspond to the
same symbol and concur in the perfection and stability of
the philosophical stone. The sun is the hieroglyphic sign
of truth, because it is the visible source of light, and the
rude stone is the symbol of stability. It was for this reason
that the ancients took the stone Elagabalus as the actual
type of the sun, and for this also that the medieval
alchemists pointed to the philosophical stone as the first
means of making philosophical gold, that is to say, of trans-
forming the vital forces represented by the six metals into
Sol, that is, into truth and light, the first and indispensable
operation of the great work, leading to the secondary adapta-

THE STONE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 155

tions, and discovering, by the analogies of nature, the natural
and grosser gold to the possessors of the spiritual and living
gold, of the true salt, the true mercury, and the true sulphur
of the philosophers. To find the philosophical stone is then
to have discovered the absolute, as the masters otherwise
say. Now, the absolute is that which admits of no errors,
it is the fixation of the volatile, it is the rule of the imagina-
tion, it is the very necessity of being, it is the immutable
law of reason and truth ; the absolute is that which is.
Now that which is in some sense precedes he who is. God
himself cannot be in the absence of a reason of being, and
can exist only in virtue of a supreme and inevitable reason.
It is this reason which is the absolute ; it is this in which
we must believe if we desire a rational and solid foundation
for our faith. It may be said in these days that God is
merely a hypothesis, but the absolute reason is not a hypo-
thesis ; it is essential to being.

St Thomas once said : " A thing is not just because God
wills it, but God wills it because it is just." Had St
Thomas logically deduced all the consequences of this
beautiful thought, he would have found the philosophical
stone, and besides being the angel of the school, he would
have been its reformer. To believe in the reason of God
and in the God of reason is to render atheism impossible.
When Voltaire said : " If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent Him," he felt rather than understood the
reason which is in God. Does God really exist ? There is
no knowing, but we desire it to be so, and hence we believe
it. Faith thus formulated is reasonable faith, for it admits
the doubt of science, and, as a fact, we believe only in things
which seem to us probable, though we do not know them.
To think otherwise is delirium ; to speak otherwise is to
talk like the illuminated or fanatical. Now, it is not to
such persons that the philosophical stone is promised. The
ignoramuses who have turned primitive Christianity from its
path by substituting faith for science, dream for experi-
ence, the fantastic for the real ; inquisitors who, during

156 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

so many ages, have waged a war of extermination against
magic; have succeeded in enveloping with darkness the
ancient discoveries of the human mind, so that we are
now groping for the key to the phenomena of nature. Now,
all natural phenomena depend upon a single and immutable
law, represented by the philosophical stone, and especially
by its cubic form. This law, expressed by the tetrad in the
Kabbalah, furnished the Hebrews with all the mysteries of
their divine Tetragram. It may be said therefore that the
philosophical stone is square in every sense, like the heavenly
Jerusalem of St John ; that one of its sides is inscribed with
the name ntbw and the other with that of GOD ; that one of
its facets bears the name of ADAM, a second that of HEVA,
and the two others those of AZOT and INRI. At the be-
ginning of the French translation of a book by the Sieur de
Nuisement on the philosophical salt, the spirit of the earth
is represented standing on a cube over which tongues of
flame are passing ; the phallus is replaced by a caduceus ;
the sun and moon figure on the right and left breast ; he is
bearded, crowned, and holds a sceptre in his hand. This is
the Azoth of the sages on his pedestal of salt and sulphur.
The symbolic head of the goat of Mendes is occasionally
given to this figure, and it is then the Baphomet of the
Templars and the Word of the Gnostics — bizarre images
which became scarecrows for the vulgar after affording food
for thought to the sages, innocent hieroglyphs of thought
and faith which have been a pretext for the rage of persecu-
tions. How pitiable are men in their ignorance, but how
they would despise themselves if once they came to know !

157

THE UN1%

159

reason ? It

'y infer that

THB tHWg0j(Jll06 impossible.

CAPUT ciftCTjIjUS i°n is P°s-

from our 'fc' Many

city of our laiuts c°*^sal dogma, sntificaUy

fl'^es ^GCOTV gLuo* *^ CQIOH ^o tins deao.

abandon ? ° coiTesp01Q Because ries and

o. store ior gins are so ^^der tae tell us

roicaJly an(atise deata. ^ it ^as L But

ed of PTidUrally teinpe?:c^ occasioixed an un-

pride thav t^e excess vmi .^y^ ^ed to life.

-GVaiK^ adultery- . ^ "he ^as ifc is

- a f was assassiua ^de, body

arat v«* rtrvftmaii^ac0 " 1A . J

as a vnoc a^d woula is a

only 3*st Xveral of our p is

Tevolu- The

cori- rgy

deer-par

e

not tf arat

to

VQ

is

s

1

158

156

THE

so many ageg
magic ; have
ancient disc
now groping
all natural
law, repres
by its cub
Kabbalah
their div
philosop]
Jerusale
the nar
its face
and t)
ginnir

is re

flam

the

be?

th

T!

fif

n

-,

0a

cuS"' ««"s° '„*«•• .tii"" **w«J*

£^5S^^^

THE UNIV THE UNIVERSAL MEDICINE 159

Must we deny evidence or renounce reason ? It
e absurd to say so. We should simply infer that
wrong in supposing resurrection to be impossible.
ad posse valet consecutio.

is now make bold to affirm that resurrection is pos-
id occurs oftener than might be thought. Many
whose deaths have been legally and scientifically
,y of ouria. have been subsequently found in their coffins dead
;es, accor(d:'but having evidently come to life and having bitten
on of thy i their clenched hands so as to open the arteries and
ibandon from their horrible agonies. A doctor would tell us
store foryich persons were in a lethargy, and not dead. But
cally an<ps lethargy ? It is the name which we give to an un-
of prid( <ited death, a death which is falsified by return to life,
•ide tha^gjasy by words to escape from a difficulty when it is
3?ran(esible to explain facts. The soul is joined to the body
er .partisans of sensibility, and when sensibility ceases it is a
of rag^hign that the soul is departing. The magnetic sleep is
3ved b targy or factitious death which is curable at will. The
evere sation or torpor produced by chloroform is a real lethargy
•ariestei ends sometimes in absolute death, when the soul,
ebru1 ied by its temporary liberation, makes an effort of will to
a tetfieae free altogether, which is possible for those who have
•ock^ tiered hell, that is to say, whose moral strength is
to that of astral attraction. Hence resurrection is
ie g.'e. .ble only for elementary souls, and it is these above all
„ \id run the risk of involuntary revival in the tomb. Great
(:esl: and true sages are never buried alive. The theory and
k 'hetice of resurrection will be given in our Ritual ; to those,
)rolnwhile, who may ask me whether I have raised the dead,
in(ipir)uld say that if I replied in the affirmative they would
^ ittt believe me.

a^andt now remains for us to examine whether the abolition
0 ingpain is possible, and whether it is wholesome to employ
in oroform or magnetism for surgical operations. We think,
Md science will acknowledge it later on, that by diminishing
,; musibility we diminish life, and what we subtract from pain

160 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

under such circumstances turns to the profit of death. Pain
bears witness to the struggle for life, and hence we observe
that the dressing of the wound is excessively painful in the
case of persons who are operated on under anasthetics.
Now, if chloroform were resorted to at each dressing, one of
two things would happen — either the patient would die, or
the pain would return and continue between the dressings.
Nature is not violated with impunity.

21 & X
DIVINATION

DENTES FURCA AMENS

THE author of this book has dared many things in his life,
and never has any fear retained his thought a prisoner. It
is not at the same time without legitimate dread that he
approaches the end of the magical doctrine. It is a question
now of revealing, or rather reveiling, the Great Secret, the
terrible secret, the secret of life and death, expressed in the
Bible by those formidable and symbolical words of the serpent,
who was himself symbolical : I. NEQUAQUAM MORIEMINI ; II.
SED ERITIS ; III. SICUT Dn ; IV. SCIENTES BONUM ET MALUM.
One of the privileges which belong to the initiate of the
Great Arcanum, and that which sums them all, is Divination.
According to the vulgar comprehension of the term, to divine
signifies to conjecture what is unknown, but its true sense is
ineffable to the point of sublimity. To divine (divinari) is to
exercise divinity. The word divinus, in Latin, signifies some-
thing far different from divus, which is equivalent to the man-
god. Devin, in French, contains the four letters of the word DiEU

DIVINATION 161

(God), plus the letter N, which corresponds in its form to the
Hebrew alepJi N, and kabbalistically and hieroglyphically
expresses the Great Arcanum, of which the Tarot symbol is
the figure of the Juggler. Whosoever understands perfectly
the absolute numeral value of N multiplied by N final in words
which signify science, art, or force, who subsequently adds the
five letters of the word DEVIN, in such a way as to make five
go into four, four into three, three into two, and two into one,
such a person, by translating the resultant number into
primitive Hebrew characters, will write the occult name of
the Great Arcanum, and will possess a word of which the
sacred Tetragram itself is only the equivalent and the
image.

To be a diviner, according to the force of the term, is
hence to be divine, and something more mysterious still.
Now, the two signs of human divinity, or of divine
humanity, are prophecies and miracles. To be a prophet
is to see beforehand the effects which exist in causes, to
read in the astral light ; to work miracles is to act upon
the universal agent, and subject it to our will. The author
of this book will be asked whether he is a prophet and
thaumaturge. Let inquirers recur to all that he wrote before
certain events took place in the world ; and as to anything
else that he may have said or done, would anyone believe his
mere word if he made any unusual statement? Further-
more, one of the essential conditions of divination is to be
never constrained, never suffer temptation — in other words,
being put to the test. Never have the masters of science
yielded to the curiosity of anyone. The sibyls burned their
books when Tarquin refused to appraise them at their proper
value ; the great Master was silent when He was asked for
a sign of His divine mission ; Agrippa perished of want
rather than obey those who demanded a horoscope. To
furnish proofs of science to those who suspect the very
existence of the science is to initiate the unworthy, to pro-
fane the gold of the sanctuary, to deserve the excommunica-
tion of sages, and the fate of betrayers.

L

162 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

The essence of divination, that is to say, the Great
Magical Arcanum, is represented by all symbols of the
science, and is intimately connected with the one and
primeval doctrine of Hermes. In philosophy, it gives
absolute certitude ; in religion, the universal secret of
faith ; in physics, the composition, decomposition, recom-
position, realisation, and adaptation of philosophical Mercury,
called Azoth by the alchemists ; in dynamics it multiplies
our forces by those of perpetual motion; it is at once
mystical, metaphysical, and material, with correspondent
effects in the three worlds ; it procures charity in God,
truth in science, and gold in riches, for metallic transmuta-
tion is at once an allegory and reality, as all the adepts of
true science are perfectly well aware. Yes, gold can really
and materially be made by means of the stone of the sages,
which is an amalgam of salt, sulphur, and mercury, thrice
combined in Azoth by a triple sublimation and a triple
fixation. Yes, the operation is often easy, and may be ac-
complished in a day, an instant ; at other times it requires
months and years. But to succeed in the great work, one
must be divinus — a diviner, in the kabbalistic sense of the
term — and it is indispensable that one should have re-
nounced, in respect of personal interest, the advantage of
wealth, so as to become its dispenser. Eaymund Lully
enriched sovereigns, planted Europe with institutions, and
remained poor. Nicholas Flamel, who, in spite of his
legend, is really dead, only attained the great work when
asceticism had completely detached him from riches. He
was initiated by a suddenly imparted understanding of the
book Asck Mezareph, written in Hebrew by the kabbalist
Abraham, possibly the compiler of the Sepher Jetzirah.
Now, this understanding was, for Flamel, an intuition
deserved, or, rather, rendered possible, by the personal
preparations of the adept. I believe I have spoken
sufficiently.

Divination is, therefore, an intuition, and the key of
this intuition is the universal and magical doctrine of

DIVINATION 163

analogies. By means of these analogies, the magus in-
terprets visions, as did the patriarch Joseph in Egypt,
according to Biblical history. The analogies in the re-
flections of the astral light are as exact as the shades of
colour in the solar spectrum, and can be calculated and
explained with great exactitude. It is, however, indispen-
sable to know the dreamer's degree of intellectual life, which,
indeed, he will himself completely reveal by his own dreams
in a manner that will profoundly astonish himself.

Somnambulism, presentiments, and second sight are simply
an accidental or induced disposition to dream in a voluntary
or awakened sleep — that is, to perceive the analogous re-
flections of the astral light, as we shall explain to demon-
stration in our Ritual, wihen providing the long -sought
method of regularly prdducing and directing magnetic
phenomena. As to divinatory instruments, they are
simply a means of communication between diviner and
consulter, serving merely to fix the two wills upon the
same sign. Vague, complex, shifting figures help to focus
the reflections of the astral fluid, and it is thus that lucidity
is procured by coffee-grouts, mists, the white of egg, &c.,
which evoke fatidic forms, existing only in the translucid —
that is, in the imagination of the operators. Vision in
water is worked by the dazzlement and tiring of the optic
nerve, which then resigns its functions to the translucid,
and produces a brain illusion in which the reflections of the
astral light are taken for real images. Hence nervous
persons, of weak sight and lively imagination, are most
fitted for this species of divination, which, indeed, is most
successful when performed by children. Let us not here
misinterpret the function which we attribute to imagination
in divinatory arts. It is by imagination assuredly that we
see, and this is the natural aspect of the miracle, but we
see true things, and in this consists the marvellous aspect
of the natural work. We appeal to the experience of all
veritable adepts. The author of this book has tested all
kinds of divination, and has invariably obtained results in

164 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

proportion to the exactitude of his scientific operations and
the good faith of his consulters.

The Tarot, that miraculous work which inspired all the
sacred books of antiquity, is, by reason of the analogical pre-
cision of its figures and numbers, the most perfect instrument
of divination, and can be employed with complete confidence.
Its oracles are always rigorously true, at least in a certain
sense, and even when it predicts nothing it reveals secret
things and gives the most wise counsel to its consulters.
Alliette, who, in the last century, from a hairdresser became a
kabbalist, and kabbalistically called himself Etteilla, reading
his name backwards after the manner of Hebrew, Alliette,
I say, after thirty years of meditation over the Tarot, came
very near to recovering everything that is concealed in this ex-
traordinary work ; however, he ended only by misplacing the
keys, through want of their proper understanding, and inverted
the order and character of the figures without, at the same
time, entirely destroying their analogies, so great are the
sympathy and correspondence which exist between them.
The writings of Etteilla, now very rare, are obscure, weari-
some, and in style barbarous ; they have not all been
printed, and some manuscripts of this father of modern
cartomancers are in the hands of a Paris bookseller who has
been good enough to shew them us. Their most remarkable
points are the obstinate opinions and incontestible good
faith of the author, who all his life perceived the grandeur
of the occult sciences, but was destined to die at the gate of
the sanctuary without ever penetrating behind the veil. He
had little esteem for Agrippa, made much of Jean Belot, and
knew nothing of the philosophy of Paracelsus, but he pos-
sessed a highly-trained intuition, a volition most persevering,
though his fancy exceeded his judgment. His endowments
were insufficient for a magus and more than were needed for
a skilful and accredited diviner of the vulgar order. Hence
Etteilla had a fashionable success which a more accomplished
magician would perhaps have been wrong to waive, but
would certainly not have claimed.

SUMMARY AND KEY OF THE FOUR SECRET SCIENCES 165

When uttering at the end of our Eitual a last word upon
the Tarot, we shall show the complete method of reading
and hence of consulting it, not only on the probable chances
of destiny, but also, and above all, upon the problems of
philosophy and religion, concerning which it provides a
solution which is invariably certain and also admirable in
its precision, when explained in the hierarchic order of the
analogy of the three worlds with the three colours and the
four shades which compose the sacred septenary. All this
belongs to the positive practice of magic, and can only be
summarily indicated and established theoretically in the
present first part, which is concerned exclusively with the
doctrine of transcendent magic, and the philosophical and
religious key of the transcendent sciences, known, or rather
not known, under the name of occult.

22 n Z

SUMMAKY AND GENERAL KEY OF THE FOUR
SECRET SCIENCES

SIGNA THOT PAN

LET us now sum up the entire science by its principles.
Analogy is the final word of science and the first word of
faith. Harmony consists in equilibrium, and equilibrium
subsists by the analogy of contraries. Absolute unity is
the supreme and final reason of things. Now, this reason
can neither be one person nor three persons ; it is a reason,
and reason eminently. To create equilibrium, we must
separate and unite — separate by the poles, unite by the
centre. To reason upon faith is to destroy faith ; to create

1.66

SUMMAKY AND KEY OF THE FOUK SECRET SCIENCES 16?

mysticism in philosophy is to assail reason. Eeason and
faith, by their nature, mutually exclude one another, and
they unite by analogy. Analogy is the sole possible
mediator between the finite and infinite. Dogma is the
ever ascending hypothesis of a presumable equation. For
the ignorant, it is the hypothesis which is the absolute
affirmation, and the absolute affirmation which is hypothesis.
Hypotheses are necessary in science, and he who seeks to
realise them enlarges science without decreasing faith, for
on the further side of faith is the infinite. We believe
in what we do not know, but what reason leads us to
admit. To define and circumscribe the object of faitli is,
therefore, to formulate the unknown. Professions of faith
are formulations of the ignorance and aspirations of man.
The theorems of science are monuments of his conquests.
The man who denies God is not less fanatical than he who
defines him with pretended infallibility. God is commonly
defined by the enumeration of all that He is not. Man
makes God by an analogy from the lesser to the greater,
whence it results that the conception of God by man is ever
that of an infinite man who makes man a finite God. Man
can realise that which he believes in the measure of that
which he knows, and by reason of that which he does not
know, and he can accomplish all that he wills in the measure
of that which he believes and by reason of that which he
knows. The analogy of contraries is the connection of light
and shade, of height and hollow, of plenum and void.
Allegory, the mother of all dogmas, is the substitution of
impressions for seals, of shadows for realities. It is the fable
of truth and the truth of fable. One does not invent a
dogma, one veils a truth, and a shade for weak eyes is
produced. The initiator is not an impostor, he is a
revealer, that is, following the meaning of the Latin word
revelare, a man who veils afresh. He is the creator of a
new shade.

Analogy is the key of all secrets of nature and the sole
fundamental reason of all revelations. This is why religions

168 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

seem to be written in the heavens and in all nature ; this is
just as it should be, for the work of God is the book of God,
and in what He writes should be discerned the expression of
His thought, and consequently of His being, since we conceive
Him only as the supreme thought. Dupuis and Volney saw
only a plagiarism in this splendid analogy, which should
have led them to acknowledge the catholicity, that is, the
universality of the primeval, one, magical, kabbalistic, and
immutable doctrine of revelation by analogy. Analogy yields
all the forces of nature to the magus ; analogy is the quint-
essence of the philosophical stone, the secret of perpetual
motion, the quadrature of the circle, the temple resting on
the two pillars JAKIN and BOHAS, the key of the great
arcanum, the root of the tree of life, the science of good and
evil. To find the exact scale of analogies in things appreci-
able by science is to fix the bases of faith and thus become
possessed of the rod of miracles. Now, there is a prin-
ciple and rigorous formula, which is the great arcanum.
Let the wise man seek it not, since he has already found
it ; let the profane seek for ever, and they will never
find it.

Metallic transmutation takes place spiritually and
materially by the positive key of analogies. Occult
medicine is simply the exercise of the will applied to the
very source of life, to that astral light the existence of which
is a fact, which has a movement conformed to calculations
having the great magical arcanum for their ascending and
descending scale. This universal arcanum, the final and
eternal secret of transcendent initiation, is represented in
the Tarot by a naked girl, who touches the earth only by one
foot, has a magnetic rod in each hand, and seems to be
running in a crown held up by an angel, an eagle, a bull,
and a lion. Fundamentally, the figure is analogous to the
cherub of Jekeskiel, of which a representation is here given,
and to the Indian symbol of Addhanari, which again is
analogous to the ado-nai of Jekeskiel, who is vulgarly called
Ezekiel. The comprehension of this figure is the key of all

SUMMARY AND KEY OF THE FOUR SECRET SCIENCES 169

the occult sciences. Readers of my book must already under-
stand it philosophically if they are at all familiar with the
symbolism of the Kabbalah. It remains for us now to
realise what is the second and more important operation of
the great work. It is something undoubtedly to find the
philosophical stone, but how is it to be ground into the
powder of projection ? What are the uses of the magical
rod ? What is the real power of the divine names in the
Kabbalah ? The initiates know, and those who are deserv-
ing of initiation will know in turn if they discover the great
arcanum by means of the very numerous and precise indica-
tions which we have given them. Why are these simple
and pure truths for ever and of necessity concealed ?
Because the elect of the understanding are always few on
earth, and are encompassed by the foolish and wicked like
Daniel in the den of lions. Moreover, analogy instructs us
in the laws of the hierarchy, and absolute science, being an
omnipotence, must be the exclusive possession of the most
worthy. The confusion of the hierarchy is the actual de-
struction of societies, for then the blind become leaders of
the blind, according to the word of the Master. Give back
initiation to priests and kings and order will come forth
anew. So, in my appeal to the most worthy, and in exposing
myself to all the dangers and anathemas which threaten
revealers, I believe myself to have done a great and useful
thing, directing the breath of God living in humanity upon
the social chaos, and creating priests and kings for the world
to come.

A thing is not just because God wills it, but God wills
it because it is just, said the angel of the schools. It is as
if he said : The absolute is reason. Reason is self -existent ;
it is because it is, and not because we suppose it ; it is or
nothing is ; could you wish anything to exist without
reason ? Madness itself does not occur without it. Reason
is necessity, is law, is the rule of all liberty and the direction
of all initiative. If God exists, it is by reason. The con-
ception of an absolute God outside or independent of reason

170 THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

is the idol of black magic and the phantom of the fiend.
The demon is death masquerading in the cast-off garments
of life, the spectre of Hirrenkesept throned upon the rubbish
of ruined civilisations, and concealing a loathsome nakedness
by the rejected salvage of the incarnations of Vishnu.

HERE ENDS THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC.

THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

INTRODUCTION

KNOWEST thou that old queen of the world who is on the
march always and wearies never ? Every uncurbed passion,
every selfish pleasure, every licentious energy of humanity,
and all its tyrannous weakness, go before the sordid mistress
of our tearful valley, and, scythe in hand, these indefatigable
labourers reap their eternal harvest. That queen is old as
time, but her skeleton is concealed in the wreckage of
women's beauty, which she abstracts from their youth and
their love. Her skull is adorned with dead tresses that are
not her own. Spoliator of crowned heads, she is em-
bellished with the plunder of queens, from the star-begemmed
hair of Berenice to that, white without age, which the execu-
tioner sheared from the brow of Marie Antoinette. Her
livid and frozen body is clothed in polluted garments and
tattered winding-sheets. Her bony hands, covered with
rings, hold diadems and chains, sceptres and crossbones,
jewels and ashes. When she goes by, doors open of them-
selves; she passes through walls; she penetrates to the
cabinets of kings ; she surprises the extortioners of the poor
in their most secret orgies ; she sits down at their board,
pours out their wine, grins at their songs with her gumless
teeth, takes the place of the lecherous courtesan hidden be-
hind their curtains. She delights in the vicinity of sleeping
voluptuaries ; she seeks their caresses as if she hoped to grow
warm in their embrace, but she freezes all those whom she
touches and herself never kindles. At times, notwithstand-
ing, one would think her seized with frenzy ; she no longer
stalks slowly ; she runs ; if her feet are too slow, she spurs
a pale horse, and charges all breathless through multitudes.
Murder rides with her on a red charger ; shaking his mane
of smoke, fire flies before her with wings of scarlet and

175

176 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

black ; famine and plague follow on diseased and emaciated
steeds, gleaning the few sheaves which remain to complete
her harvest.

After this funereal procession come two little children,
radiating with smiles and life, the intelligence and love of
the coming century, the dual genius of a new-born humanity.
The shadows of death fold up before them, as does night
before the morning star ; with nimble feet they skim the
earth, and sow with full hands the hope of another year.
But death will come no more, impiteous and terrible, to mow
like dry grass the ripe blades of the new age ; it will give
place to the angel of progress, who will gently liberate souls
from mortal chains, so that they may ascend to God. When
men know how to live they will no longer die ; they will
transform like the chrysalis, which becomes a splendid
butterfly. The terrors of death are daughters of ignorance,
and death herself is only hideous by reason of the rubbish
which covers her, and the sombre hues with which her
images are surrounded. Death, truly, is the birth-pang of
life. There is a force in nature which dieth not, and this
force perpetually transforms beings to preserve them. This
force is the reason or word of nature. In man also there is
a force analogous to that of nature, and it is the reason or
word of man. The word of man is the expression of his
will directed by reason, and it is omnipotent when reasonable,
for then it is analogous to the word of God himself. By the
word of his reason man becomes the conqueror of life, and
can triumph over death. The entire life of man is either
the parturition or miscarriage of his word. Human beings
who die without having understood or formulated the word
of reason, die devoid of eternal hope. To withstand success-
fully the phantom of death, we must be identified with the
realities of life. Does it signify to God if an abortion
wither, seeing that life is eternal ? Does it signify to Nature
if unreason perish, since reason which never perishes still
holds the keys of life ? The first and terrible force which
destroys abortions eternally was called by the Hebrews

)DUCTION

Samael ; by other easterns, Satan ; and by the Latins,
Lucifer. The Lucifer of the Kabbalah is not an accursed
and stricken angel; he is the angel who enlightens, who
regenerates by fire ; he is to the angels of peace what the
comet is to the mild stars of the spring-time constellations.
The fixed star is beautiful, radiant, and calm ; she drinks the
celestial perfumes and gazes with love upon her sisters ;
clothed in her glittering robe, her forehead crowned with
diamonds, she smiles as she chants her morning and evening
canticle ; she enjoys an eternal repose which nothing can
disturb, and solemnly moves forward without departing from
the rank assigned her among the sentinels of light. But the
wandering comet, dishevelled and of sanguinary aspect,
comes hurriedly from the depths of heaven and fiings herself
athwart the path of the peaceful spheres, like a chariot of
war between the ranks of a procession of vestals ; she dares
to face the burning spears of the solar guardians, and, like a
bereft spouse who seeks the husband of her dreams during
widowed nights, she penetrates even unto the inmost sanctuary
of the god of day ; again she escapes, exhaling the fires which
consume her, and trailing a long conflagration behind her ;
the stars pale at her approach ; constellate flocks, pasturing
on flowers of light in the vast meadows of the sky, seem to
flee before her terrible breath. The grand council of spheres
assembles, and there is universal consternation ; at length
the loveliest of the fixed stars is commissioned to speak in
the name of all the firmament and offer peace to the head-
long vagabond.

" My sister," she thus commences, " why dost thou disturb
the harmony of the spheres ? What evil have we wrought
thee ? And why, instead of wandering wilfully, dost thou
not fix thy place like us in the court of the sun ? Why dost
thou not chant with us the evening hymn, clothed like our-
selves in a white garment, fastened at the breast with a
diamond clasp ? Why float thy tresses, adrip with fiery
sweat, through the mists of the night ? Ah, wouldst thou
but take thy place among the daughters of heaven, how

M

178 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

much more beautiful wouldst thou be ! Thy face would
burn no longer with the toil of thine incredible nights ;
thine eyes would be pure, thy smiling countenance white
and red like that of thy happy sisters ; all the stars would
know thee, and, far from fearing thy flight, would rejoice at
thine approach ; for then thou wouldst be made one with
us by the indestructible bonds of universal harmony, and
thy peaceful existence would be one voice more in the
canticle of infinite love."

And the comet replies to the fixed star : " Believe not, 0
my sister, that I am permitted to wander at will and vex
the harmony of the spheres ! God hath appointed my path,
even as thine, and if it appear to thee uncertain and ram-
bling, it is because thy beams cannot penetrate far enough to
take in the circumference of the ellipse which has been
given me for my course. My fiery hair is God's beacon ; I
am the messenger of the suns, and I immerse myself con-
tinually in their burning heat, that I may dispense it to
young worlds on my journey which have not yet sufficient
warmth, and to ancient stars which have grown cold in their
solitude. If I weary in my long travellings, if my beauty
be less mild than thine own, and if my garments are less un-
spotted, yet am I a noble daughter of heaven, even as thou
art. Leave me the secret of my terrible destiny, leave me the
dread which surrounds me, curse me even if thou canst not
comprehend ; I shall none the less accomplish my work, and
continue my career under the impulse of the breath of God f
Happy are the stars which rest, which shine like youthful
queens in the peaceful society of the universe ! I am the
proscribed, the eternal wanderer, who has infinity for domain.
They accuse me of setting fire to the planets, the heat of
which I renew ; they accuse me of terrifying the stars which
I enlighten ; they chide me with breaking in upon universal
harmony, because I do not revolve about their particular
centres, because I join them one with another, directing my
gaze towards the sole centre of all the suns. Be reassured,
therefore, 0 beauteous fixed star ! I shall not impoverish

INTRODUCTION 179

thy peaceful light ; rather I shall expend in thy service my
own life and heat. I shall disappear from heaven when I
shall have consumed myself, and my doom will have been
glorious enough ! Know that various fires burn in the
temple of God, and do all give Him glory ; ye are the light
of golden candelabra ; I am the flame of sacrifice. Let us
each fulfil our destinies."

Having uttered these words, the comet tosses back her
burning hair, uplifts her fiery shield, and plunges into
infinite space, seeming to be lost for ever.

Thus Satan appeared and disappeared in the allegorical
narratives of the Bible. " ISTow there was a day," says the
book of Job, " when the sons of God came to present them-
selves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, ' Whence comest thou ? '
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, 'From going to
and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.' "

A Gnostic gospel, discovered in the east by a learned
traveller of our acquaintance, explains the genesis of light to
the profit of Lucifer, as follows : — The self-conscious truth
is the living thought. Truth is thought as it is in itself,
and formulated thought is speech. When eternal thought
desired a form, it said : " Let there be light." Now, this
thought which speaks is the Word, and the Word said :
" Let there be light," because the Word itself is the light of
minds. The uncreated light, which is the divine Word,
shines because it desires to be seen ; when it says : " Let
there be light ! " it ordains that eyes shall open ; it creates
intelligences. When God said : " Let there be light ! "
Intelligence was made, and the light appeared. Now the
Intelligence which God diffused by the breath of His mouth,
like a star given off from the sun, took the form of a splen-
did angel, who was saluted by heaven under the name of
Lucifer. Intelligence awakened, and comprehended its
nature completely by the understanding of that utterance of
the Divine Word : " Let there be light ! " It felt itself to
be free because God had called it into being, and, raising up

180 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

its head, with both wings extended, it replied : " I will not
be slavery." " Then shalt thou be suffering," said the
Uncreated Voice. " I will be liberty," replied the light.
" Pride will seduce thee," said the Supreme Voice, " and thou
wilt bring forth death." " I needs must strive with death
to conquer life," again responded the created light. There-
upon God loosened from his bosom the shining cord which
restrained the superb angel, and beholding him plunge
through the night, which he furrowed with glory, He loved
the offspring of His thought, and said with an ineffable
smile : " How beautiful was the light ! "

God has not created suffering ; intelligence has accepted
it to be free. And suffering has been the condition imposed
upon freedom of being by Him who alone cannot err, be-
cause He is infinite. For the essence of intelligence is
judgment, and the essence of judgment is liberty. The
eye does not really possess light except by the faculty of
closing or opening. Were it forced to be always open, it
would be the slave and victim of the light, and would cease
to see in order to escape the torment. Thus, created Intel-
ligence is not happy in affirming God, except by its liberty
to deny Him. Now, the Intelligence which denies, invari-
ably affirms something, since it is asserting its liberty. It
is for this reason that blasphemy glorifies God, and that hell
was indispensable to the happiness of heaven. Were the
light unrepelled by shadow, there would be no visible forms.
If the first angels had not encountered the depths of dark-
ness, the child-birth of God would have been incomplete,
and there could have been no separation between the
created and essential light. Never would Intelligence have
known the goodness of God if it had never lost Him. Never
would God's infinite love have shone forth in the joys of
His mercy had the prodigal Son of Heaven remained in the
house of His Father. When all was light, there was light
nowhere ; it filled the breast of God, who was labouring to
bring forth. And when He said : " Let there be light ! "
He permitted the darkness to repel the light, and the

INTRODUCTION 181

universe issued from chaos. The negation of the angel
who, at birth, refused slavery, constituted the equilibrium
of the world, and the motion of the spheres commenced.
The infinite distances admired this love of liberty, which
was vast enough to fill the void of eternal light, and strong
enough to bear the hatred of God. But God could hate not
the noblest of His children, and He proved him by His wrath
only to confirm him in His power. So also the Word of
God Himself, as if jealous of Lucifer, willed to come down
from heaven and pass triumphantly through the shadows of
hell. He willed to be proscribed and condemned ; He pre-
meditated the terrible hour when He should cry, in the
extreme of His agony : " My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me ? " As the star of the morning goes before the
sun, the rebellion of Lucifer announced to new-born nature
the coming incarnation of God. Possibly Lucifer, in his
fall through night, carried with him a rain of suns and stars
by the attraction of his glory. Possibly our sun is a demon
among the stars, as Lucifer is a star among the angels.
Doubtless it is for this reason that it lights so calmly
the horrible anguish of humanity and the long agony of
earth — because it is free in its solitude, and possesses its light.
Such were the tendencies of the heresiarchs in the early
centuries. Some, like the Ophites, adored the demon under
the figure of the serpent ; others, like the Cainites, justified
the rebellion of the first angel like that of the first murderer.
All these errors, all these shadows, all these monstrous idols
of anarchy which India opposes in its symbols to the magical
Trimourti, have found priests and worshippers in Christianity.
The demon is nowhere mentioned in Genesis ; an allegorical
serpent deceives our first parents. Here is the common
translation of the sacred text : " Now, the serpent was more
subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made." But this is what Moses says :

ovita nvp nvy "IE>K mpn rrn Sao ony rrn prom

Wha-Nahash halah haroum mi-chol halaht ha-shadeh asher
hashah Jhoah ^Elohlm.

182 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

This signifies, according to the version of Fabre d'Olivet :
" Now, original attraction (cupidity) was the entraining pas-
sion of all elementary life (the interior active power) of
nature, the work of Jhoah, the Being of beings." But
herein Fabre d'Olivet is beside the true interpretation,
because he was unacquainted with the grand keys of the
Kabbalah. The word Nahasch, explained by the symbolical
letters of the Tarot rigorously signifies :

14 3 Nun. — The power which produces combinations.
5 n He. — The recipient and passive producer of forms.
21 W Schin. — The natural and central fire equilibrated by double
polarisation.

Thus, the word employed by Moses, read kabbalistically,
gives the description and definition of that magical universal
agent, represented in all theogonies by the serpent ; to this
agent the Hebrews applied the name of OD when it mani-
fested its active force, of OB when it exhibited its passive
force, and of AOUR when it wholly revealed itself in its
equilibrated power, producer of light in heaven and gold
among metals. It is therefore that old serpent which en-
circles the world, and places his devouring head beneath
the foot of a Virgin, the type of initiation — that virgin who
presents a little new-born child to the adoration of three
magi, and receives from' them, in exchange for this favour,
gold, myrrh, and frankincense. So does doctrine serve in
all hieratic religions to veil the secret of those forces of
nature which the initiate has at his disposal ; religious
formulae are the summaries of those words full of mystery
and power which make the gods descend from heaven and
yield themselves to the will of men. Judea borrowed its
secrets from Egypt ; there Greece sent her hierophants, and
later her theosophists, to the school of the great prophets ;
the Eome of the Caesars, mined by the initiation of the
catacombs, collapsed one day into the Church, and a
symbolism was reconstructed with the remnants of all the
worships which had been absorbed by the queen of the
world. According to the Gospel narrative, the inscription

INTRODUCTION 183

which set forth the spiritual royalty of Christ was written
in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin ; it was the expression
of the universal synthesis. Hellenism, in fact, that grand
and beauteous religion of form, announced the coming of the
Saviour no less than the prophets of Judaism ; the fable of
Psyche was an ultra-Christian abstraction, and the cultus
of the Pantheons, by rehabilitating Socrates, prepared the
altars for that unity of God, of which Israel had been the
mysterious preserver. But the synagogue denied its Messiah,
and the Hebrew letters were effaced, at least in the blinded
eyes of the Jews. The Roman persecutors dishonoured
Hellenism, and it could not be restored by the false modera-
tion of the philosopher Julian, surnanied perhaps unjustly
the Apostate, since his Christianity was never sincere. The
ignorance of the middle ages followed, opposing saints and
virgins to gods, goddesses, and nymphs ; the deep sense of
the Hellenic mysteries became less understood than ever;
Greece herself did not only lose the traditions of her ancient
cultus, but separated from the Latin Church ; and thus, for
Latin eyes, the Greek letters were blotted out, as the Latin
letters disappeared for Greek eyes. So the inscription on
the Cross of the Saviour vanished entirely, and nothing
except mysterious initials remained. But when science and
philosophy, reconciliated with faith, shall unite all the
various symbols, then shall all the magnificences of the
antique worships again blossom in the memory of men,
proclaiming the progress of the human mind in the intuition
of the light of God. But of all forms of progress the
greatest will be that which, restoring the keys of nature
to the hands of science, shall enchain for ever the hideous
spectre of Satan, and, explaining all exceptional phenomena
of nature, shall destroy the empire of superstition and
idiotic credulity. To the accomplishment of this work we
have consecrated our life, and do still devote it, to the most
toilsome and difficult researches. We would emancipate
altars by overthrowing idols ; we desire the man of intelli-
gence to become once more the priest and king of nature,

184 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

and we would preserve by explanation all images of the
universal sanctuary.

The prophets spoke in parables and images, because ab-
stract language was wanting to them, and because prophetic
perception, being the sentiment of harmony or of universal
analogies, translates naturally by images. Taken literally
by the vulgar, these images become idols or impenetrable
mysteries. The sum and succession of these images and
mysteries constitute what is called symbolism. Symbolism,
therefore, comes from God, though it may be formulated
by men. Eevelation has accompanied humanity in all ages,
has transfigured with human genius, but has ever expressed
the same truth. True religion is one ; its dogmas are simple,
and within the reach of all. At the same time, the multi-
plicity of symbols has been a book of poesy indispensable to
the education of human genuis. The harmony of outward
beauties and the poetry of form had to be revealed by God
to the infancy of man ; but soon Venus had Psyche for her
rival, and Psyche enchanted Love. Thus the cultus of the
form perforce yielded to those ambitious dreams which
already adorned the eloquent wisdom of Plato. The advent
of Christ was prepared, and for this reason was expected ;
it came because the world awaited it, and to become popular
philosophy transformed into belief. Emancipated by this
belief itself, the human mind speedily protested against the
school which sought to materialise its signs, and the work
of Eoman Catholicism was solely the unconscious prepara-
tion for the emancipation of consciences and the establish-
ment of the bases of universal association. All these things
were the regular and normal development of divine life in
humanity ; for God is the great soul of all souls, the im-
movable centre about which gravitate all intelligences like
a cloud of stars.

Human intelligence has had its morning ; its noon will
come, and the decline follow, but God will ever be the same.
It seems, however, to the dwellers on the earth that the sun
rises youthful and timid in the morning, shines with all its

INTRODUCTION 185

power at mid- day, and goes wearied to rest in the evening.
Nevertheless, it is earth which revolves while the sun is
motionless. Having faith, therefore, in human progress,
and in the stability of God, the free man respects religion in
its past forms, and no more blasphemes Jupiter than
Jehovah ; he still salutes lovingly the radiant image of
the Pythian Apollo, and discovers its fraternal resemblance
to the glorified countenance of the risen Kedeemer. He
believes in the great mission of the Catholic hierarchy, and
finds satisfaction in observing the popes of the middle ages
who opposed religion as a check upon the absolute power of
kings ; but he protests with the revolutionary centuries
against the servitude of conscience which would enchain the
pontifical keys ; he is more protestant than Luther, since he
does not even believe in the infallibility of the Augsbourg
Confession, and more catholic than the Pope, for he has no
fear that religious unity will be broken by the ill-will of
the courts. He trusts in God rather than Roman policy for
the salvation of the unity idea ; he respects the old age of
the Church, but he has no fear that she will die ; he knows
that her apparent death will be a transfiguration and a
glorious assumption.

The author of this book makes a fresh appeal to the
eastern magi to come forward and recognise once again that
divine Master whose cradle they saluted, the great initiator
of all the ages. All His enemies have fallen ; all those who
condemned Him are dead ; those who persecuted Him have
passed into sleep for ever ; He is for ever alive. The en-
vious have combined against Him, agreeing on a single point ;
the sectaries have united to destroy Him ; they have crowned
themselves kings and proscribed Him ; they have become
hypocrites and accused Him ; they have constituted them-
selves judges and pronounced His sentence of death ; they
have turned headsmen and executed Him ; they have forced
Him to drink hemlock, they have crucified Him, they have
stoned Him, they have burned Him and cast His ashes to the
wind ; then they have turned scarlet with terror, for He still

186 THE KITUAL OF TEANSCENDENT MAGIC

stood erect before them, impeaching them by His wounds and
overwhelming them by the brightness of His scars. They
believed that they had slain Him in His cradle at Bethlehem,
but He is alive in Egypt ! They carry Him to the summit
of the mountain to cast Him down ; the mob of His mur-
derers encircles Him, and already triumphs in His certain
destruction ; a cry is heard ; is not that He who is shattered
on the rocks of the abyss ? They whiten and look at one
another ; but He, calm and smiling with pity, passes through
the midst of them and disappears. Behold another moun-
tain which they have just dyed with His blood ! Behold a
cross, a sepulchre, and soldiers guarding His tomb ! Mad-
men ! The tomb is empty, and He whom they regard as
dead is walking peaceably between two travellers, on the
road to Emmaus. Where is He ? Whither does He go ?
Warn the masters of the world ! Tell the Csesars that their
power is threatened ! By whom ? By a pauper who has
110 stone on which to lay His head, by a man of the people
condemned to the death of slaves. What insult or what
madness ! It matters not. The Caesars marshal all their
power ; sanguinary edicts proscribe the fugitive, everywhere
scaffolds rise up, circuses open arrayed with lions and
gladiators, pyres are lighted, torrents of blood flow, and the
Caesars, believing themselves victorious, dare add another
name to those they rehearse on their trophies ; then they
die, and their own apotheosis dishonours the gods whom they
defended. The hatred of the world confounds Jupiter and
Nero in a common contempt. Temples transformed into
tombs are cast down over the proscribed ashes, and above
the debris of idols, above the ruins of empires, He only, He
whom the Caesars proscribed, whom so many satellites
pursued, whom so many executioners tortured, He only lives,
alone reigns, alone triumphs !

Notwithstanding, His own disciples speedily misuse His
name ; pride enters the sanctuary ; those who should pro-
claim His resurrection seek to immortalise His death, that
they may feed, like the ravens, on His ever-renewing flesh.

INTKODUCTION 187

In place of imitating Him by His sacrifice and shedding their
blood for their children in the faith, they chain Him in the
Vatican as upon another Caucasus, and become the vultures
of this divine Prometheus. But what signifies their evil
dream ? They can only imprison His image ; He Himself
is free and erect, proceeding from exile to exile and from
conquest to conquest ; it is possible to bind a man, but not
to make captive the Word of God ; speech is free, and
nothing can repress it ; this living speech is the condem-
nation of the wicked, and hence they seek to destroy it, but it
is they only who die, and the word of truth remains to judge
their memory ! Orpheus may have been rent by bacchantes,
Socrates may have quaffed the poisoned cup, Jesus and His
apostles have perished in the utmost tortures, John Hus,
Jerome of Prague, and innumerable others, have been burned ;
St Bartholomew and the massacres of September may have
had in turn their victims ; cossacks, knouts, and Siberian
deserts are still at the disposal of the Eussian Emperor, but
the spirit of Orpheus, of Socrates, of Jesus, and of all
martyrs will live for ever in the midst of their dead per-
secutors, will stand erect amidst failing institutions and
collapsing empires. It is this divine spirit, the spirit of
the only Son of God, which St John represents in his
apocalypse, standing between golden candlesticks, because
He is the centre of all lights ; having seven stars in His
hand, like the seed of a new heaven ; and sending down His
speech upon the earth under the symbol of a two-edged
sword. When the wise in their discouragement sleep
through the night of doubt, the spirit of Christ is erect
and vigilant. When the nations, weary of the labour which
emancipates them, lie down and dream over their
chains, the spirit of Christ is erect and protesting.
When the blind partisans of sterilised religions cast
themselves in the dust of old temples, the spirit of
Christ is erect and praying. When the strong become
weak, when virtues are corrupted, when all things bend
and sink down in search of a shameful pasture, the spirit

188 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

of Christ is erect, gazing up to heaven, and awaiting the
hour of His Father.

Christ signifies priest and king by excellence. The Christ
initiator of modern times came to form new priests and new
kings by science, and, above all, by charity. The ancient
magi were priests and kings, and the Saviour's advent was
proclaimed to them by a star. This star was the magical
pentagram, having a sacred letter at each point. It is the
symbol of the intelligence which rules by unity of force over
the four elementary potencies ; it is the pentagram of the
magi, the blazing star of the children of Hiram, the proto-
type of equilibrated light ; to each of its points a ray of
light ascends, and from each a ray goes forth ; it represents
the grand and supreme athanor of nature, which is the body
of man. The magnetic influence issues in two beams from
the head, from either hand, and from either foot. The
positive ray is balanced by the negative. The head corre-
sponds with the two feet, each hand with a hand and foot,
each of the two feet with the head and one hand. This
ruling sign of equilibrated light represents the spirit of
order and harmony ; it is the sign of the omnipotence of
the magus, and hence, when broken or incorrectly drawn, it
represents astral intoxication, abnormal and ill-regulated
projections of the astral light, and, therefore, bewitchments,
perversity, madness, and it is what the magi term the
signature of Lucifer. There is another signature which
also symbolises the mysteries of light, namely, the sign of
Solomon, whose talismans bear on one side the impression
of his seal which we have given in our Doctrine, and on
the other the following signature (p. 189), which is the
hieroglyphic theory of the composition of magnets, and
represents the circulatory law of the lightning.

Eebellious spirits are enchained by the exhibition of the
blazing five-pointed star or the seal of Solomon, because each
gives them proof of their folly and threatens them with a
sovereign power capable of tormenting them by their recall

INTRODUCTION

189

to order. Nothing tortures the wicked so much as good-
ness. Nothing is more odious to madness than reason. But
if an ignorant operator should make use of these signs
without knowing them, he is a blind man who discourses of
light to the blind, an ass who would teach children to
read.

" If the blind lead the blind," said the great and divine
Hierophant, " both fall into the pit."

And now a final word to sum this entire introduction.

If you be blind like Samson when you cast down the pillars
of the temple, its ruins will crush you. To command nature
we must be above nature by resistance of her attractions.
If your mind be perfectly free from all prejudice, superstition,
and incredulity, you will command spirits. If you do not
obey blind forces, they will obey you. If you be wise like
Solomon, you will perform the works of Solomon ; if you be
holy like Christ, you will accomplish the works of Christ.
To direct the currents of the inconstant light, we must be

190 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

established in the constant light. To command the elements,
we must have overcome their hurricanes, their lightnings,
their abysses, their tempests. In order to DARE we must
KNOW ; in order to WILL, we must DARE ; we must WILL to
possess empire, and to reign we must BE SILENT.

THE RITUAL

OF

TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER I

PREPARATIONS

EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a
vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle
speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will.
Hence it is said in the sacred and symbolical books that
men will be judged, not according to their thoughts and
their ideas, but according to their works. We must act in
order to be.

We have, therefore, to treat in this place of the grand
and terrific question of magical works ; we are concerned no
longer with theories and abstractions ; we approach realitiesr
and we are about to place the rod of miracles in the hands
of the adept, saying to him at the same time : " Be not
satisfied with what we tell you ; act for yourself." We
have to deal here with works of relative omnipotence, with
the means of seizing upon the greatest secrets of nature and
compelling them into the service of an enlightened and
inflexible will.

Most known magical rituals are either mystifications or
enigmas, and we are about to rend for the first time, after
so many centuries, the veil of the occult sanctuary. To
reveal the holiness of mysteries is to provide a remedy for
their profanation. Such is the thought which sustains our

192 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

courage and enables us to face all the perils of this enter-
prise, possibly the most intrepid which it has been permitted
the human mind to conceive and carry out.

Magical operations are the exercise of a natural power,
but one superior to the ordinary forces of nature. They
are the result of a science and a practice which exalt human
will beyond its normal limits. The supernatural is only the
natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted
natural ; a miracle is a phenomenon which strikes the multi-
tude because it is unexpected ; the astonishing is that which
astonishes ; miracles are effects which surprise those who are
ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes which are
not in proportion to such effects. Miracles exist only for
the ignorant, but, as there is scarcely any absolute science
among men, the supernatural can still obtain, and does so
indeed for the whole world. Let us set out by saying that
we believe in all miracles because we are convinced and
certain, even from our own experience, of their entire possi-
bility. There are some which we do not explain, though
we regard them as no less explicable. From the greater to
the lesser, from the lesser to the greater, the consequences
are identically related and the proportions progressively
rigorous. But in order to work miracles we must be out-
side the ordinary conditions of humanity ; we must either
be abstracted by wisdom or exalted by madness, either
.superior to all passions or beyond them through ecstasy or
frenzy. Such is the first and most indispensable prepara-
tion of the operator. Hence, by a providential or fatal law,
the magician can only exercise omnipotence in inverse pro-
portion to his material interest ; the alchemist makes so
much the more gold as he is the more resigned to priva-
tions, and the more esteems that poverty which protects
the secrets of the magnum opus. Only the adept whose
heart is passionless will dispose of the love and hate of
those whom he would make instruments of his science ;
the myth of Genesis is eternally true, and God permits the
tree of science to be approached only by those men who are

PREPARATIONS 193

sufficiently strong and self-denying not to covet its fruits.
Ye, therefore, who seek in science a means to satisfy your
passions, pause in this fatal way ; you will find nothing but
madness or death. This is the meaning of the vulgar
tradition that the devil ends sooner or later by strangling
sorcerers. The magus must hence be impassible, sober and
chaste, disinterested, impenetrable, and inaccessible to any
kind of prejudice or terror. He must be without bodily
defects, and proof against all contradictions and all diffi-
culties. The first and most important of magical opera-
tions is the attainment of this rare pre-eminence.

We have said that impassioned ecstasy may produce the
same results as absolute superiority, and this is true as to
the issue, but not as to the direction of magical operations.
Passion forcibly projects the astral light and impresses un-
foreseen movements on the universal agent, but it cannot
check with the facility that it impels, and its destiny then
resembles Hippolytus dragged by his own horses, or Phalaris
himself victimised by the instrument of torture which he
had invented for others. Human volition realised by action
is like a cannon-ball, and recedes before no obstacle. It
either passes through it or is buried in it, but if it advance
with patience and perseverance, it is never lost ; it is like
the wave which returns incessantly and wears away iron in
the end.

Man can be modified by habit, which becomes, according
to the proverb, his second nature. By means of persevering
and graduated athletics, the powers and activity of the body
can be developed to an astonishing extent. It is the same
with the powers of the soul. Would you reign over your-
selves and others ? Learn how to will. How can one
learn to will ? This is the first arcanum of magical initia-
tion, and it was to make it understood fundamentally that
the ancient depositaries of priestly art surrounded the
approaches of the sanctuary with so many terrors and
illusions. They did not believe in a will until it had pro-
duced its proofs, and they were right. Power is justified by

194* THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

victories. Indolence and forgetfulness are enemies of will,
and for this reason all religions have multiplied their
observances and made their worship minute and difficult.
The more we restrain ourselves for an idea, the greater is
the strength we acquire within the scope of that idea. Are
not mothers more partial to the children who have caused
them most suffering and cost them most anxieties ? So
does the power of religions reside exclusively in the inflexible
will of those who practise them. So long as there is one
faithful person to believe in the holy sacrifice of the Mass,
there will be a priest to celebrate it for him ; and so long
as there is a priest who daily recites his breviary, there will
be a pope in the world. Observances, apparently most in-
significant and most foreign in themselves to the proposed
end, lead, notwithstanding, to that end by education and
exercise of will. If a peasant rose up every morning at two
or three o'clock, and went daily a long distance from home
to gather a sprig of the same herb before the rising of the
sun, he would be able to perform a great number of pro-
digies by merely carrying this herb upon his person, for it
would be the sign of his will, and would become by his will
itself all that he required it to become in the interest of his
desires. /In order to do a thing we must believe in the
possibility of our doing it, and this faith must forthwith be
translated into acts. When a child says : " I cannot," his
mother answers : " Try." Faith does not even try ; it begins
with the certitude of completing, and it proceeds calmly, as
if omnipotence were at its disposal and eternity before it.
What seek you, therefore, from the science of the magi ?
Dare to formulate your desire, then set to work at once,
and do not cease acting after the same manner and for the
same end ; what you will shall come to pass, and for you
and by you it has indeed already begun. Sixtus V. said,
while watching his flocks : " I desire to be pope." You are
a beggar, and you desire to make gold ; set to work and
never leave off. I promise you, in the name of science, all
the treasures of Flamel and Eaymond Lully. " What is

PREPARATIONS 195

the first thing to do ? " Believe in your power, then act.
" But how act ? " Kise daily at the same hour, and that
early ; bathe at a spring before daybreak, and in all seasons ;
never wear dirty clothes, rather wash them yourself if need-
ful ; accustom yourself to voluntary privations, that you
may be better able to bear those which come without seek-
ing ; then silence every desire which is foreign to the ful-
filment of the great work.

" What ! By bathing daily in a spring, I shall make
gold ? " You will work in order to make it. " It is a
mockery ! " No, it is an arcanum. " How can I make use
of an arcanum which I fail to understand ? " Believe and
act ; you will understand later.

One day a person said to me : "I would that I could be
a fervent Catholic, but I am a Yoltairean. What would I
not give to have faith ! " I replied : " Say ' I would ' no
longer ; say ' I will,' and I promise you that you will
believe. You tell me you are a Voltairean, and of all the
various presentations of faith that of the Jesuits is most
repugnant to you, but at the same time seems the most
powerful and desirable. Perform the exercises of St
Ignatius again and again, without allowing yourself to be
discouraged, and you will attain the faith of a Jesuit. The
result is infallible, and should you then have the simplicity
to ascribe it to a miracle, you deceive • yourself now in
thinking that you are a Voltairean."

An idle man will never become a magician. Magic is an
exercise of all hours and all moments. The operator of
great works must be absolute master of himself ; he must
know how to conquer the allurements of pleasure, appetite,
and sleep ; he must be insensible to success and to indignity.
His life must be that of a will directed by one thought, and
served by entire nature, which he will have made subject to
mind in his own organs, and by sympathy in all the uni-
versal forces which are their correspondents. All faculties
and all senses should share in the work ; nothing in the
priest of Hermes has the right to remain idle ; intelligence

196 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

must be formulated by signs and summed by characters or
pantacles ; will must be determined by words, and must
fulfil words by deeds ; the magical idea must be rendered
into light for the eyes, harmony for the ears, perfumes for
the sense of smell, savours for the palate, objects for the
touch ; the operator, in a word, must realise in his whole
life what he wishes to realise in the world without him ; he
must become a magnet to attract the desired thing ; and
when he shall be sufficiently magnetic, he must be con-
vinced that the thing will come of itself, and without
thinking of it.

It is important for the magus to be acquainted with the
secrets of science, but he may know them by intuition, and
without formal learning. Solitaries, living in the habitual
contemplation of nature, frequently divine her harmonies,
and are more instructed in their simple good sense than
doctors, whose natural discernment is falsified by the
sophistries of the schools. True practical magicians are
almost invariably found in the country, and are frequently
uninstructed persons and simple shepherds. Furthermore,
certain physical organisations are better adapted than others
for the revelations of the occult world ; there are sensitive
and sympathetic natures, with whom intuition in the astral
light is, so to speak, inborn ; certain afflictions and certain
complaints can modify the nervous system, and, indepen-
dently of the concurrence of the will, may convert it into a
divinatory apparatus of less or more perfection ; but these
phenomena are exceptional, and generally magical power
should, and can, be acquired by perseverance and labour.
There are also some substances which produce ecstasy, and
dispose towards the magnetic sleep ; there are some which
place at the service of imagination all the most lively and
highly coloured reflections of the elementary light ; but the
use of such substances is dangerous, for they commonly
occasion stupefaction and intoxication. They are used, not-
withstanding, but in carefully calculated quantities, and
under wholly exceptional circumstances.

PREPARATIONS 197

He who decides to devote himself seriously to magical
works, after fortifying his mind against all danger of
hallucination and fright, must purify himself without and
within for forty days. The number forty is sacred, and its
very figure is magical. In Arabic numerals it consists of
the circle, which is the type of the infinite, and of the 4,
which sums the triad by unity. In Eoman numerals,
arranged after the following manner, it represents the sign
of the fundamental doctrine of Hermes, and the character of
the Seal of Solomon : —

X

/ \ X

XX XX

V7 X

X

The purification of the magus consists in abstinence from
coarse enjoyments, in a temperate and vegetable diet, in re-
fraining from intoxicating drink, and in regulating the hours
of sleep. This preparation has been indicated and repre-
sented in all forms of worship by a period of penitence and
trials preceding the symbolical feasts of life-renewal.

As already said, the most scrupulous external cleanliness
must be observed ; the poorest person can find spring water.
All clothes, furniture, and vessels made use of must also be
carefully washed, whether by ourselves or others. All dirt
is evidence of negligence, and negligence is deadly in magic.
The atmosphere must be purified at rising and retiring with
a perfume composed of the juice of laurels, salt, camphor,
white resin, and sulphur, repeating at the same time the four
sacred names, while turning successively towards the four
cardinal points. We must divulge to no one the works that
we accomplish, for, as already said in the Doctrine, mystery
is the exact and essential condition of all the operations of
science. The inquisitive must be misled by the pretence of

198 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

other occupations and other researches, such as chemical
experiments for industrial purposes, hygienic prescriptions,
the investigation of some natural secrets, and so on ; but the
forbidden name of magic must never be pronounced.

The magus must be isolated at the beginning and difficult
to approach, so that he may concentrate his power and select
his points of contact, but in proportion as he is austere and
inaccessible at first, so will he be popular and sought after
when he shall have magnetised his chain and chosen his
place in a current of ideas and of light. A laborious and
poor existence is so favourable to practical initiation that the
greatest masters have preferred it, even when the wealth of
the world was at their disposal. Then it is that Satan, that
is, the spirit of ignorance, who scorns, suspects, and detests
science because at heart he fears it, comes to tempt the
future master of the world by saying to him : " If thou art
the Son of God, command these stones to become bread."
Then it is that mercenary men seek to humiliate the prince
of knowledge by perplexing, depreciating, or sordidly exploit-
ing his labour ; the slice of bread that he deigns to need is
broken into ten fragments, so that he may ten times stretch
forth his hand. But the magus does not even smile at the
absurdity, and calmly pursues his work.

So far as may be possible, we must avoid the sight of
hideous objects and uncomely persons, must decline eating
with those whom we do not esteem, and must live in the
most uniform and studied manner. We must hold ourselves
in the highest respect, and must consider that we are de-
throned sovereigns who consent to existence in order to
reconquer our crowns. We must be mild and considerate
to all, but in social relations must never permit ourselves to
be absorbed, and must withdraw from circles in which we
cannot acquire some initiative. Finally, we may and should
fulfil the duties and practise the rites of the cultus to which
we belong. Now, of all forms of worship the most magical
is that which most realises the miraculous, which bases the
most inconceivable mysteries upon the highest reasons, which

PREPARATIONS 199

has lights equivalent to its shadows, which popularises
miracles, and incarnates God in all mankind by faith. This
religion has existed always in the world, and under many
names has been ever the one and ruling religion. It has
now among the nations of the earth three apparently hostile
forms, which are, however, destined to unite before long for
the constitution of one universal Church. I refer to the
Greek orthodoxy, Eoman Catholicism, and a final trans-
figuration of the religion of Buddha.

We have now made it plain, as we believe, that our magic
is opposed to the goetic and necromantic kinds ; it is at once
an absolute science and religion, which should not indeed
destroy and absorb all opinions and all forms of worship,
but should regenerate and direct them by reconstituting the
circle of initiates, and thus providing the blind masses with
wise and clear-seeing leaders.

We are living at a period when nothing remains to
destroy and everything to remake. " Eemake what ? The
past ? " No one can remake the past. " What, then, shall
we reconstruct ? Temples and thrones ? " To what pur-
pose, since the former ones have been cast down ? " You
might as well say : my house has collapsed from age, of
what use is it to build another ? " But will the house that
you contemplate erecting be like that which has fallen?
No, for the one was old and the other will be new. " Not-
withstanding, it will be always a house." What more can
you wish ?

200 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER II

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM

EQUILIBRIUM is the consequence of two forces. If two forces
are absolutely and invariably equal, the equilibrium will be
immobility, and therefore the negation of life. Movement
is the result of an alternate preponderance. The impulsion
given to one of the sides of a balance necessarily determines
the motion of the other. Thus contraries act on one another,
throughout all nature, by correspondence and analogical con-
nection. All life is composed of an aspiration and a respira-
tion ; creation is the assumption of a shadow to serve as a
bound to light, of a void to serve as space for the plenitude,
of a passive fructified principle to sustain and realise the
power of the active generating principle. All nature is
bisexual, and the movement which produces the appearances
of death and life is a continual generation. God loves the
void which he made in order to fill it ; science loves the ignor-
ance which it enlightens ; strength loves the weakness which
it supports ; good loves the apparent evil which glorifies it ;
day is desirous of night, and pursues it unceasingly round
the world ; love is at once a thirst and a plenitude which
must diffuse itself. He who gives receives, and he who
receives gives; movement is a continual interchange. To
know the law of this change, to be acquainted with the
alternative or simultaneous proportion of these forces, is to
possess the first principles of the great magical arcanum,
which constitutes true human divinity. Scientifically, we
can appreciate the various manifestations of the universal
movement through electric or magnetic phenomena. Elec-
trical apparatuses above all materially and positively reveal
the affinities and antipathies of certain substances. The
marriage of copper with zinc, the action of all metals in the
galvanic pile, are perpetual and unmistakable revelations.

WJ

MAGICAL EQUILIBKIUM 201

Let physicists seek and find out ; ever will the kabbalists
explain the discoveries of science !

The human body is subject, like the earth, to a dual law ;
it attracts and it radiates ; it is magnetised by an androgyne
magnetism, and reacts on the two powers of the soul, the
intellectual and the sensitive, inversely, but in proportion to
the alternating preponderances of the two sexes in their
physical organism. The art of the magnetiser consists
wholly in the knowledge and use of this law. To polarise
the action and impart to the agent a bisexual and alternated
force is the method still unknown and sought vainly for
directing the phenomena of magnetism at will, but tact
most experienced and great precision in the interior move-
ments are required to prevent the confusion of the signs of
magnetic aspiration with those of respiration ; we must also
be perfectly acquainted with occult anatomy and the special
temperament of the persons on whom we are operating.
Bad faith and bad will in subjects constitute the gravest
hindrance to the direction of magnetism. Women above all
— who are essentially and invariably actresses, who take
pleasure in impressing others so that they may impress
themselves, and are themselves the first to be deceived when
playing their neurotic melodramas — are the true black magic
of magnetism. So is it for ever impossible that magnetisers
who are uninitiated in the supreme secrets, and unassisted
by the lights of the Kabbalah, should govern this refractory
and fugitive element. To be master of woman, we must
distract and deceive her skilfully by allowing her to suppose
that it is she who is deceiving us. This advice, which we
offer chiefly to magnetising physicians, might also find its
place and application in conjugal polity.

Man can produce two breathings at his pleasure, one
warm and the other cold ; he can also project either the
active or passive light at will; but he must acquire the
consciousness of this power by habitually dwelling thereon.
The same manual gesture may alternately aspire and respire
what we are accustomed to call the fluid, and the magnetiser

202 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

will himself be warned of the result of his intention by an
alternative sensation of warmth and cold in the hand, or in
both hands when both are being used, which sensation the
subject should experience at the same time, but in a con-
trary sense, that is, with a wholly opposed alternative.

The pentagram, or sign of the microcosmos, represents,
among other magical mysteries, the double sympathy of the
human extremities with each other and with the circulation
of the astral light in the human body. Thus, when a man is
represented in the star of the pentagram, as may be seen in
the " Occult Philosophy" of Agrippa, it should be observed that
the head corresponds in masculine sympathy with the right
foot and in feminine sympathy with the left foot ; that the
right hand corresponds in the same way with the left hand
and left foot, and reciprocally of the other hand. This must
be borne in mind when making magnetic passes, if we seek
to govern the whole organism and bind all members by their
proper chains of analogy and natural sympathy. The same
knowledge is necessary for the use of the pentagram in the
conjuration of spirits, and in the evocation of errant spirits
in the astral light, vulgarly called necromancy, as we shall
explain in the fifth chapter of this Kitual. But it is well
to observe here that every action promotes a reaction, and
that in magnetising others, or influencing them magically,
we establish between them and ourselves a current of con-
trary but analogous influence which may subject us to them
instead of subjecting them to us, as happens frequently
enough in those operations which have the sympathy of love
for their object. Hence it is highly essential to be on our
defence while we are attacking, so as not to aspire on the
left while we respire on the right. The magical androgyne
depicted in the frontispiece of the Eitual has SOLVE inscribed
upon the right and COGULA on the left arm, which corre-
sponds to the symbolical figure of the architects of the
second temple, who bore their sword in one hand and their
trowel in the other. While building they had also to defend
their work and disperse their enemies ; nature herself does

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 203

likewise, destroying and regenerating at the same time.
Now, according to the allegory of Duchentau's Magical
Calendar, man, that is to say, the initiate, is the ape of nature,
who confines him by a chain, but makes him act unceasingly,
imitating the proceedings and works of his divine mistress
and imperishable model.

The alternate use of contrary forces, warmth after cold,
mildness after severity, love after anger, &c., is the secret of
perpetual motion and the permanence of power ; coquettes
feel this instinctively, and hence they make their admirers
pass from hope to fear, from joy to despondency. To operate
always on the same side and in the same manner is to over-
weight one plate of the balance, and the complete destruction
of equilibrium is the speedy result. Continual caressings
beget satiety, disgust, and antipathy, just as constant coldness
and severity in the long run alienate and discourage affec-
tion. An unvarying and ardent fire in alchemy calcines the
first matter and not seldom explodes the hermetic vessel ;
the heat of lime and mineral manure must be substituted at
regular intervals for the heat of flame. And so also in
magic ; the works of wrath or severity must be tempered by
those of beneficence and love, and if the will of the operator
be always at the same tension and directed along the same
line, great weariness will ensue, together with a species of
moral impotence.

Thus, the magus should not live altogether in his
laboratory, among his athanor, elixirs, and pantacles. How-
ever devouring be the glance of that Circe who is called
occult power, we must know how to confront her on occasion
with the sword of Ulysses, and how to withdraw our lips for a
time from the chalice which she offers us. A magical operation
should always be followed by a rest of equal length and
a distraction analogous but contrary in its object. To strive
continually against nature in order to her rule and con-
quest is to risk reason and life. Paracelsus dared to do so,
but even in the warfare itself he employed equilibrated forces
and opposed the intoxication of wine to that of intelligence.

204 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

So was Paracelsus a man of inspiration and miracles ; yet
his life was exhausted by this devouring activity, or rather
its vestment was rapidly rent and worn out ; but men like
Paracelsus can use and abuse fearlessly ; they well know
that they can no more die than grow old here below.

Nothing induces us towards joy so effectually as sorrow ;
nothing is nearer to sorrow than joy. Hence the unin-
structed operator is astounded by attaining the very
opposite of his proposed results, because he does not
know how to cross or alternate his action ; he seeks to
bewitch his enemy, and himself becomes ill and miserable ;
he desires to make himself loved, and he consumes himself
for women who deride him ; he endeavours to make gold,
and he exhausts all his resources ; his torture is that of
Tantalus eternally ; ever does the water flow back when he
stoops down to drink. The ancients in their symbols and
magical operations multiplied the signs of the duad, so that
its law of equilibrium might be remembered. In their
evocations they invariably constructed two altars, and
immolated two victims, one white and one black ; the
operator, whether male or female, holding a sword in one
hand and a wand in the other, had one foot shod and the
other bared. At the same time, either one or three persons
were required for magical works, because the duad would be
immobility or death in the absence of the equilibrating
motor ; and when a man and a woman participated in the
ceremony, the operator was either a virgin, a hermaphro-
dite, or a child. I shall be asked whether the eccentricity
of these rites is arbitrary, and whether its one end is the
exercise of the will by the mere multiplication of difficulties
in magical work ? I answer that in magic there is nothing
arbitrary, because everything is ruled and predetermined by
the one and universal dogma of Hermes, that of analogy in
the three worlds. Each sign corresponds to an idea, and to
the special form of an idea ; each act expresses a volition
corresponding to a thought, and formulates the analogies of
that thought and that will. The rites are, therefore, pre-

MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM 205

arranged by the science itself. The uninstructed person
who is not acquainted with the three powers is subject to
their mysterious fascination ; the sage understands those
powers, and makes them the instrument of his will, but
when they are accomplished with exactitude and faith, they
are never ineffectual.

All magical instruments must be duplicated ; there must
be two swords, two wands, two cups, two chafing-dishes,
two pantacles, and two lamps ; two vestments must be
worn, one over the other, and they must be of contrary
colours, a rule still followed by Catholic priests ; and either
no metal, or two at the least, must be worn. The crowns
of laurel, rue, mugwort, or vervain must, in like manner, be
double ; one of them is used in evocations, while the other
is burnt, the crackling which it makes and the curls of the
smoke which it produces being observed like an augury.
Nor is the observance vain, for in the magical work all the
instruments of art are magnetised by the operator ; the air
is charged with his perfumes, the fire which he has conse-
crated is subject to his will, the forces of nature seem to
hear and answer him ; he reads in all forms the modifica-
tions and complements of his thought. He perceives the
water agitated, and, as it were, bubbling of itself, the fire
blazing up or extinguishing suddenly, the leaves of the gar-
lands rustling, the magical rod moving spontaneously, and
strange, unknown voices passing through the air. It was
in such evocations that Julian beheld the beloved phantoms
of his dethroned gods, and was appalled at their decrepitude
and pallor.

I am aware that Christianity has for ever suppressed
ceremonial magic, and that it severely proscribes the evoca-
tions and sacrifices of the old world. It is not, therefore, our
intention to give a new ground for their existence by reveal-
ing the antique mysteries after the lapse of so many centuries.
Even in this very order of phenomena, our experiences have
been scholarly researches and nothing more. We have con-
firmed facts that we might appreciate causes, and it has

206 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

never been our pretension to restore rites which are for ever
destroyed. The orthodoxy of Israel, that religion which is
so rational, so divine, and so ill known, condemns, no less
than Christianity, the mysteries of ceremonial magic. From
the standpoint of the tribe of Levi, the exercise of trans-
cendent magic must be considered as an usurpation of
the priesthood ; and the same reason has caused the pro-
scription of operative magic by every official cultus. To
demonstrate the natural foundation of the marvellous, and
to produce it at will, is to annihilate for the vulgar mind
that conclusive evidence from miracles which is claimed by
each religion as its exclusive property and its final argu-
ment. Respect for established religions, but room also for
science ! We have passed, thank God, the days of inquisi-
tions and pyres ; unhappy men of learning are no longer
murdered on the faith of a few distraught fanatics or
hysterical girls. For the rest, let it be clearly understood
that our undertaking is concerned with studies of the
curious, and not with an impossible propaganda. Those
who may blame us for daring to term ourselves magician
have nothing to fear from the example, it being wholly
improbable that they will ever become sorcerers.

CHAPTER III

THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES

THE Abbot Trithemius, who in magic was the master of
Cornelius Agrippa, explains, in his " Steganography," the
secret of conjurations and evocations after a very natural
and philosophical manner, though possibly, for that very
reason, too simply and too easily. He tells us that to evoke
a spirit is to enter into the dominant thought of that spirit,
and if we raise ourselves morally higher along the same line,

THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES 207

we shall draw the spirit away with us, and it will certainly
serve us. To conjure is to oppose the resistance of a cur-
rent and a chain to an isolated spirit — cum jurare, to swear
together, that is, to make a common act of faith. The
greater the strength and enthusiasm of this faith, the more
efficacious is the conjuration. This is why new-born Chris-
tianity silenced the oracles ; it only possessed inspiration, it
only force. Later on, when St Peter grew old, that is, when
the world believed that it had a legal case against the
Papacy, the spirit of prophecy came to replace the oracles ;
Savonarola, Joachim of Mores, John Hus, and so many
others, by turns influenced the minds of men, and inter-
preted, by lamentations and menaces, the secret anxieties
and rebellions of all hearts.

We may act individually when evoking a spirit, but to
conjure we must speak in the name of a circle or an associa-
tion ; this is the significance of the hieroglyphical circle
traced round the magus who is operating, and out of which
he must not pass unless he wishes at the same moment to
be stripped of all his power. Let us grapple at this point
with the vital and palmary question, whether the real evoca-
tion and real conjuration of spirits are things possible, and
whether such possibility can be scientifically demonstrated.
To the first part of the question it may be replied out of
hand that everything which is not an evident impossibility
can and must be admitted as provisionally possible. As to
the second part, we affirm that in virtue of the great magical
dogma of the hierarchy and of universal analogy, the kab-
balistic possibility of real evocations can be demonstrated ;
concerning the phenomenal reality consequent upon magical
operations accomplished with sincerity, this is a matter of
experience ; as already described, we have established
it in our own persons, and by means of this Ritual we
shall place our readers in a position to renew and confirm
our experiences.

Nothing in nature perishes ; whatsoever has lived goes
on living always under new forms ; but even the anterior

208 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

forms are not destroyed, since they persist in our memory
Do we not still see in imagination the child we once kner
though now he is an old man ? The very traces which
believe to be effaced from our memory are not in rr
blotted out, for a fortuitous circumstance may evo)
recall them. But after what manner do we see the'
we have already said, it is in the astral light, wh1*
mits them to our brain by the mechanism of t1
system. On the other hand, all forms are prop
analogical to the idea which has determined th
the natural character, the signature of that ic1
term it, and so soon as the idea is acti
form is realised and bodied forth. Sch-
illumine' of Leipsic, terrified all Germ? o*.

tions, and his audacity in magical expr j>e

that his reputation became an ins' fye (

allowed himself to be carried away 3#^ ^

of hallucinations which he had pr ,^*b ^<

other world disgusted him with &,?%/. 7i

His story should be a warninp fc/^ // °f

by ceremonial magic. Nat' $ ^tf ^ ^

punity, and no one can sa' ^ • Asj|» °^/

calculable forces. It is ^<?*?^ ^ '

and will ever lead, us -^ > /^ fy "

those who would see * °^^e^^/'^s

we reply to them in Q^- ^

eminent Englishman ^

" You are perfectly wiu.
for our own part, it will u
less convinced." To those who
have scrupulously and boldly fulfilleu
there has been no result, we would reco.
should stay their hand, as it is possibly a warm^
who will not lend herself for them to these anomalou^
but if they persist in their curiosity, they have only to SL
afresh.

The triad, being the foundation of magical doctrine, must

NGLE OF PANTACLJjg 211

9 i evocations ; ' a 6 to the double

:on and effect. 18 kabbalistically,
oalistic panta<ie hieroglyphic sign

it the syt^ ieir obJect- ^ together with the

lettet V 'c kabbalah;erioug anc[ obscure

i incoming 9> the number of

s 1/mer -^ kabbalist sayg ex.

b\e e the number of the

Ue a?es*g (^at is, the key
tfWtipJit the number of the
?en itjn, and the number of
, -al we decade of Pythagoras

g! t\xe ltus of * sum of the triangular

1 ln to the sum Of an magic Of

^ It is tf*s ?en tjn, and the number of

JTA desctibe tlae .^aX, gnostic ,-amme of human genius

mottstTOuS aTl ed 3 honouiospel sought to absorb or

TaiaS i

La o^d pagaia ?.A fhe explained^ of lefcters and numbers

kibi- as a the kabbalah, which, from

.j^tes, o Gematriah and Temurah.

\>bath circle of ,m to us arbitrary or devoid

b0§eoi to6 great 6 Side tOV' PhilosoPhical symbolism of

^as3 a matter st importance in the teaching
^0irPosed to bm the occult sciences. The
mv^> t oft- t0^' and which connected primitive

*dS et\^ o^>seTV pe^ -t if the Spil5 with letters, and letters with
•°L?f£eavea, ^^ed; Moreo keys of Solomon. We have

a oi taJT^ forming ^vs> preserved to our own day,
set l' iro^ the f antacle or Sr nothing else than the game of

" v sacteo- sy^^ad and the ; of which were remarked and
6T' \oi^eA 8talC:'ndentlv of th^e in the modern world by the
^e 8f "L0iao». m'lde use of thos'de Gebelin.
al nd gtaver We haVG repr' Solomon is explained by St John
3Teast, a ^ atiobalists. The He says, " There are three which
ise ^{CQV&™ the celebrai_the Father, the Word, and the
5TaysUC oUT10uted extraordire three which give testimony on
)d • \tiatvf tter, and the blood." Thus, St John

of Hermetic philosophy, who attri-

\
\

208 THE J RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

forms are not dest ABRACADABRA
Do we not still se* ABRACADABR
though now he is a ABEACADAB
believe to be effact ABRACADA
blotted out, for a i ABRACAD
recall them. But a ABRACA
we have already sai< ABRAC
mits them to our br, ABRA
system. On the othe ABR
analogical to the idea AB

the natural character, t A

term it, and so soon , letterg ig ft key of the pentagram.
form is realised and b^ fiye and reproduced thirty times,
illuming of Leipsic, ter,g and numbers of the two following
tions, and his audacity 11
that his reputation beet
allowed himself to be car A

of hallucinations which he / V

other world disgusted him^
His story should be a wai
by ceremonial magic. N&
punity, and no one can saf
calculable forces. It is *
and will ever lead, us |
those who would see r the unity of the first principle,
we reply to them in active agent. A united to B

eminent Englishman • ,he duad by the monad. R is

" You are perfectly wiu ',e it represents hieroglyphic-

for our own part, it will ^ ults from the union of the
less convinced." To those wn H, which is that of the
have scrupulously and boldly fu the unity of the initiate
there has been no result, we M, and the number 66, the
should stay their hand, as it is pc kabbalistically forms the
who will not lend herself for them^ of the triad, and conse-
but if they persist in their curiosit the circle. We may re-
afresh. of the Apocalypse, that

The triad, being the foundation rposed the number of the

THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES 211

beast, that is to say, of idolatry, by adding a 6 to the double
senary of ABRAC AD ABEA, which gives 1 8 kabbalistically,
the number attributed in the Tarot to the hieroglyphic sign
of night and of the profane — the moon, together with the
towers, dog, wolf, and crab — a mysterious and obscure
number, the kabbalistic key of which is 9, the number of
initiation. On this subject the sacred kabbalist says ex-
pressly : " He that hath understanding (that is, the key
of kabbalistic numbers), let him count the number of the
beast, for it is the number of a man, and the number of
him is 666." It is, in fact, the decade of Pythagoras
multiplied by itself and added to the sum of the triangular
Pantacle of Abracadabra ; it is thus the sum of all magic of
the ancient world, the entire programme of human genius
which the divine genius of the Gospel sought to absorb or
transplant.

These hieroglyphical combinations of letters and numbers
belong to the practical part of the kabbalah, which, from
this point of view, is divided into Gematriah and Temurah.
Such calculations, which now seem to us arbitrary or devoid
of interest, then belonged to the philosophical symbolism of
the East, and were of the highest importance in the teaching
of holy things emanating from the occult sciences. The
absolute kabbalistic alphabet, which connected primitive
ideas with allegories, allegories with letters, and letters with
numbers, was then called the keys of Solomon. We have
already stated that these keys, preserved to our own day,
but wholly misconstrued, are nothing else than the game of
Tarot, the antique allegories of which were remarked and
appreciated for the first time in the modern world by the
learned archaeologist, Court de Gebelin.

The double triangle of Solomon is explained by St John
in a remarkable manner. He says, " There are three which
give testimony in heaven — the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Spirit ; and there are three which give testimony on
earth — the spirit, the water, and the blood." Thus, St John
agrees with the masters of Hermetic philosophy, who attri-

212

THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

bute to their sulphur the name of ether, to their mercury
that of philosophical water, and to their salt the qualification
of the dragon's blood or menstruum of the earth ; blood or
salt corresponds by opposition with the Father, azotic or
mercurial water with the Word or Logos, and the ether with
the Holy Spirit. But the things of transcendent symbolism
can only be rightly understood by the true children of
science.

The threefold repetition of names with varied intona-
tions was united to triangular combinations in magical cere-
monies. The magic rod was frequently surmounted with a
small magnetised fork, which Paracelsus replaced by the
trident represented below.

This trident is a pantacle expressing the synthesis of the
triad in the monad, thus completing the sacred tetrad. He
ascribed to this figure all the virtues which kabbalistic
Hebrews attribute to the name of Jehovah, and the thauma-
turgic properties of the Abracadabra used by the hierophants
of Alexandria. Let us here recognise that it is a pan-
tacle, and consequently a concrete and an absolute sign of
an entire doctrine which has been that of an immense
magnetic circle, not only for ancient philosophers, but also
for adepts of the middle ages. The restoration in our own
day of its original value by the comprehension of its
mysteries, might not that also restore all its miraculous
virtue and all its power against human diseases ?

THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES 213

The old sorceresses, when they spent the night at the
meeting-place of three cross-roads, yelled three times in
honour of the triple Hecate. All these figures, all these
dispositions of numbers and of characters, are, as we have
already said, so many instruments for the education of the
will, by fixing and determining its habits. They serve,
furthermore, to conjoin all the powers of the human soul in
action, and to increase the creative force of the imagination ;
it is the gymnastics of thought in training for realisation ;
so the effect of these practices is infallible, like nature,
when they are fulfilled with absolute confidence and in-
domitable perseverance. The Grand Master tells us that
faith could transplant trees into the sea and remove
mountains. Even a superstitious and insensate practice is
efficacious because it is a realisation of the will. Hence a
prayer is more powerful if we go to church to say it than
when it is said at home, and it will work miracles if we
fare to a famous sanctuary for the purpose, in other words, to
one which is strongly magnetised by the enormous number
of its frequenters, traversing two or three hundred leagues
with bare feet, and asking alms by the way. Men laugh at
the simple woman who denies herself a pennyworth of milk
in the morning that she may carry a penny taper to burn
on the magic triangle in a chapel ; but they who laugh are
ignorant, and the simple woman does not pay too dearly for
what she thus purchases of resignation and of courage.
Great minds with great pride pass by, shrugging their
shoulders ; they rise up against superstition with a din
which shakes the world; and what happens ? The towers of
the great minds topple over, and their ruins revert to the
providers and purchasers of penny tapers, who are content
to hear it everywhere proclaimed that their reign is for ever
ended, provided that they rule always.

The great religions have never had more than one serious
rival, and this rival is magic. Magic produced the occult
associations which brought about the revolution termed the
Renaissance ; but it has been the doom of the human mind,

214 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

blinded by insensate passions, to realise literally the allegori-
cal history of the Hebrew Hercules ; by overthrowing the
pillars of the temple, it has itself been buried under the
ruins. The masonic associations of the present time are no
less ignorant of the high meaning of their symbols than are
the rabbins of the Sepher Jetzirah and the Zohar upon the
ascending scale of the three degrees, with the transverse
progression from right to left and from left to right of the
kabbalistic septenary. The compass of the G.'. A.*, and
the square of Solomon have become the gross and material
level of unintelligent Jacobinism, realised by a steel triangle ;
this obtains both for heaven and earth. The initiated
divulgers to whom the illuminated Cazotte predicted a violent
death have, in our own days, exceeded the sin of Adam;
having rashly gathered the fruits of the tree of knowledge,
which they did not know how to use for their nourishment,
they have cast it to the beasts and reptiles of the earth.
So was the reign of superstition inaugurated, and it must
persist until the period when true religion shall be again
constituted on the eternal foundations of the hierarchy of
three degrees, and of the triple power which the hierarchy
exercises blindly or providentially in the three worlds.

CHAPTEE IV

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR

THE four elementary forms roughly separate and dis-
tinguish the created spirits which the universal movement
disengages from the central fire. The spirit everywhere
toils and fructifies matter by life ; all matter is animated ;
thought and soul are everywhere. By possessing ourselves
of the thought which produces diverse forms, we become
the master of forms, and make them serve our purposes.

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR 215

The astral light is saturated with such souls, which it
disengages in the unceasing generation of beings. These
souls have imperfect wills, which can be governed and em-
ployed by more powerful wills ; then great invisible chains
form, and may occasion or determine great elementary com-
motions. The phenomena established by the criminal trials
of magic, and quite recently by M. Eudes de Mirville, have
no other cause. Elementary spirits are like children : they
chiefly torment those who trouble about them, unless, in-
deed, they are controlled by high reason and great severity.
We designate these spirits under the name of occult elements,
and it is these who frequently occasion our bizarre or dis-
turbing dreams, who produce the movements of the divining
rod and rappings upon walls or furniture, but they can
manifest no thought other than our own, and when we are
not thinking, they speak to us with all the incoherence of
dreams. They reproduce good and evil indifferently, for
they are without free will, and are hence irresponsible ; they
exhibit themselves to ecstatics and somnambulists under in-
complete and fugitive forms. This explains the nightmares
of St Anthony, and most probably the visions of Swedenborg.
Such creatures are neither damned nor guilty, they are
curious and innocent. We may use or abuse them like
animals or children. Therefore the magus who makes use
of them assumes a terrible responsibility, for he must expiate
all the evil which he causes them to accomplish, and the
intensity of his punishment will be in proportion to the
extent of the power which he may have exercised by their
mediation.

To govern elementary spirits, and thus become the king
of the occult elements, we must first have undergone the
four ordeals of ancient initiations ; and seeing that these
initiations exist no longer, we must have substituted analo-
gous experiences, such as exposing ourselves boldly in a
fire, crossing an abyss by means of the trunk of a tree or a
plank, scaling a perpendicular mountain during a storm,
swimming through a dangerous whirlpool or cataract. A

216 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

man who is timid in the water will never reign over the
undines ; one who is afraid of fire will never command sala-
manders ; so long as we are liable to giddiness we must
leave the sylphs in peace, and forbear from irritating the
gnomes ; for inferior spirits will only obey a power which
has overcome them in their own element. When this in-
contestable faculty has been acquired by exercise and daring,
the word of our will must be imposed on the elements by
special consecrations of air, fire, water, and earth. This is
the indispensable preliminary of all magical operations.
The air is exercised by breathing towards the four cardinal
points, saying : —

The Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and breathed
into the face of man the breath of life. Be Michael, my
leader, and Sabtabiel, my servant, in and by the light.
May my breath become a word, and I will rule the spirits
of this creature of air ; I will curb the steeds of the sun by
the will of my heart, and by the thought of my mind, and
by the apple of the right eye. Therefore I do exorcise thee,
creature of air, by Pentagrammaton, and in the name
Tetragrammaton, wherein are firm will and true faith.
Amen. Sela : Fiat. So be it.

The prayer of the sylphs must next be recited, after
tracing their sign in the air with the quill of an eagle.

Prayer of the Sylphs.

Spirit of Light, Spirit of Wisdom, whose breath gives and
takes away the form of all things ; Thou before whom the
life of every being is a shadow which transforms and a
vapour which passes away ; Thou who ascendest upon the
clouds and dost fly upon the wings of the wind ; Thou who
breathest out and the limitless immensities are peopled ;
Thou who breathest in and all which came forth from Thee
unto Thee returneth ; endless movement in the eternal
stability, be Thou blessed for ever ! We praise Thee and
we bless Thee in the fleeting empire of created light, of

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR 217

shadows, reflections, and images, and we aspire without
ceasing towards Thine immutable and imperishable splen-
dour. May the ray of Thine intelligence and the warmth
of Thy love descend on us ; then what is volatile shall be
fixed, the shadow shall become body, the spirit of the air
shall receive a soul, and the dream be a thought. We shall
be swept away no more before the tempest, but shall bridle
the winged steeds of the morning, and guide the course of
the evening winds, that we may flee into Thy presence. O
Spirit of Spirits, 0 eternal Soul of Souls, 0 imperishable
Breath of Life, 0 Creative Sigh, O Mouth which dost
breathe forth and withdraw the life of all beings in the ebb
and flow of Thine eternal speech, which is the divine ocean
of movement and of truth ! Amen.

Water is exorcised by imposition of hands, breathing, and
speech ; consecrated salt, and a little of the ash which re-
mains in the pan of incense, are also mingled with it. The
aspergillus is formed of twigs of vervain, periwinkle, sage,
mint, ash, and basil, tied by a thread taken from a virgin's
distaff, and provided with a handle of hazelwood from a tree
which has not yet fruited ; the characters of the seven
vspirits must be graven thereon with the magic bodkin. The
salt and ash must be separately consecrated, saying : —

Over the Salt.

May wisdom abide in this salt, and may it preserve our
minds and bodies from all corruption, by Hochmael, and
in the virtue of Euach-Hochmael ! May the phantoms of
Hyle depart herefrom, that it may become a heavenly salt,
salt of the earth and earth of salt, that it may feed the
threshing ox, and strengthen our hope with the horns of
the flying bull ! Amen.

Over the Ash.

May this ash return unto the fount of living waters, may
it become a fertile earth, and may it bring forth the tree of

218 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

life, by the Three Names, which are Netsah, Hod, and
Jesod, in the beginning and in the end, by Alpha and
Omega, which are in the spirit of AZOTH ! Amen.

Mingling the Water, Salt, and Ash.

In the salt of eternal wisdom, in the water of regenera-
tion, and in the ash whence the new earth springeth, be all
things accomplished by Eloim, Gabriel, Eaphael, and Uriel,
through the ages and seons ! Amen.

Exorcism of the Water.

Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and
let it divide the waters from the waters ; the things which
are above are like unto things which are below, and things
below are like unto things above, for the performance of the
wonders of one thing. The sun is its father, the moon its
mother, the wind hath carried it in the belly thereof ; it
ascendeth from earth to heaven, and again it descendeth
from heaven to earth. I exorcise thee, creature of water,
that thou mayest become unto men a mirror of the living
God in His works, a fount of life, and ablution of sins.

Prayer of the Undines.

Dread King of the Sea, who hast the keys of the flood-
gates of heaven, and dost confine the waters of the under-
world in the caverns of earth ; King of the deluge and the
floods of the springtime ; Thou who dost unseal the sources
of rivers and fountains ; Thou who dost ordain moisture,
which is like the blood of earth, to become the sap of
plants : Thee we adore and Thee we invoke ! Speak unto
us, Thine inconstant and unstable creatures, in the great
tumults of the sea, and we shall tremble before Thee ;
speak unto us also in the murmur of limpid waters, and we
shall yearn for Thy love ! O Immensity into which flow

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR 219

all the rivers of life, to be continually reborn in Thee ! O
ocean of infinite perfections ! Height which reflects Thee
in the depth, depth which exhales Thee to the height, lead
us unto true life by intelligence and love ! Lead us to im-
mortality by sacrifice, that we may be found worthy one
day to offer Thee water, blood, and tears, for the remission
of sins ! Amen.

Fire is exorcised by the sprinkling of salt, incense, white
resin, camphor, and sulphur, by thrice pronouncing the
three names of the genii of fire : MICHAEL, king of the sun
and the lightning ; SAMAEL, king of volcanoes ; and ANAEL,
prince of the astral light ; and, finally, by reciting the

Prayer of the Salamanders.

Immortal, eternal, ineffable, and uncreated Father of all
things, who art borne upon the ever-rolling chariot of worlds
which revolve unceasingly ; Lord of the ethereal immensities,
where the throne of Thy power is exalted, from which
height Thy terrible eyes discern all things, and Thy holy
and beautiful ears unto all things hearken, hear Thou Thy
children, whom Thou didst love before the ages began ; for
Thy golden, Thy grand, Thine eternal majesty shines above
the world and the heaven of stars ! Thou art exalted over
them, 0 glittering fire ! There dost thou shine, there dost
Thou commune with Thyself by Thine own splendour, and
inexhaustible streams of light pour from Thine essence for
the nourishment of Thine infinite spirit, which itself doth
nourish all things, and forms that inexhaustible treasure of
substance ever ready for generation, which adapts it and
appropriates the forms Thou hast impressed on it from the
beginning ! From this spirit the three most holy kings who
surround Thy throne and constitute Thy court, derive also
their origin, 0 universal Father ! 0 sole and only Father
of blessed mortals and immortals ! In particular Thou hast
created powers which are marvellously like unto Thine
eternal thought and Thine adorable essence; Thou hast

220 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

established them higher than the angels, who proclaim Thy
will to the world ; finally, Thou hast created us third in
rank within our elementary empire. There our unceasing
exercise is to praise Thee and adore Thy good pleasure ;
there we burn continually in our aspiration to possess Thee.
O Father ! 0 ; Mother, most tender of all mothers ! 0
admirable archetype of maternity and of pure love ! 0 son,
flower of sons ! 0 form of all forms, soul, spirit, harmony,
and number of all things ! Amen.

The earth is exorcised by aspersion of water, by breath-
ing, and by fire, with the perfumes proper for each day,
and the

Prayer of the Gnomes.

King invisible, who, taking the earth as a support, didst
furrow the abysses to fill them with Thine omnipotence ;
Thou whose name doth shake the vaults of the world, Thou
who causest the seven metals to flow through the veins of
the rock, monarch of the seven lights, rewarder of the sub-
terranean toilers, lead us unto the desirable air, and to the
realm of splendour. We watch and we work unremittingly,
we seek and we hope, by the twelve stones of the Holy
City, by the hidden talismans, by the pole of loadstone
which passes through the centre of the world ! Saviour,
Saviour, Saviour, have pity on those who suffer, expand our
hearts, detach and elevate our minds, enlarge our entire
being ! 0 stability and motion ! 0 day clothed with
night ! O darkness veiled by light ! 0 master who never
keepest back the wages of Thy labourers ! 0 silver white-
ness ! 0 golden splendour ! 0 crown of living and melo-
dious diamonds ! Thou who wearest the heaven on Thy
finger like a sapphire ring, Thou who concealest under
the earth, in the stone kingdom, the marvellous seed of
stars, live, reign, be the eternal dispenser of the wealth
whereof Thou hast made us the warders ! Amen.

It must be borne in mind that the special kingdom of

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR 221

the gnomes is at the north, that of the salamanders at the
south, that of the sylphs at the east, and that of the undines
at the west. These beings influence the four temperaments
of man, that is to say, the gnomes affect the melancholy,
salamanders the sanguine, undines the phlegmatic, and
sylphs the bilious. Their signs are — the hieroglyphs of the
bull for the gnomes, who are commanded with the sword ;
those of the lion for the salamanders, who are commanded
with the bifurcated rod or the magic trident; those of the
eagle for the sylphs, who are commanded by the holy pan-
tacles ; finally, those of the water-carrier for the undines,
who are commanded by the cup of libations. Their re-
spective sovereigns are Gob for the gnomes, Djin for the
salamanders, Paralda for the sylphs, and Nicksa for the
undines.

When an elementary spirit torments, or, at least, vexes,
the inhabitants of this world, it must be conjured by air,
water, fire, and earth, by breathing, sprinkling, burning of
perfumes, and by tracing on the earth the star of Solomon
and the sacred pentagram. These figures must be perfectly
correct, and drawn either with the charcoal of consecrated
fire, or with a reed dipped in various colours, mixed with
powdered loadstone. Then, holding the pantacle of Solomon
in one hand and taking up successively the sword, rod, and
cup, the conjuration of the four should be recited with a
loud voice, after the following manner : — Caput mortuum,
the Lord command thee by the living and votive serpent !
Cherub, the Lord command thee by Adam Jotchavah !
Wandering Eagle, the Lord command thee by the wings of
the Bull ! Serpent, the Lord Tetragrammaton command
thee by the angel and the lion ! Michael, Gabriel, Raphael,
and Anael ! Flow, MOISTURE, by the spirit of ELO'I'M.
EARTH, be established by ADAM JOTCHAVAH. Spread,

FIRMAMENT, by JAHUVEHU ZEBAOTH. Fulfil, JUDGMENT, by

fire in the virtue of MICHAEL. Angel of the blind eyes,
obey, or pass away with this holy water ! Work, winged
bull, or revert to the earth, unless thou wilt that I should

222 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

pierce thee with this sword ! Chained eagle, obey my sign,
or fly before this breathing! Writhing serpent, crawl at
my feet, or be tortured by the sacred fire, and give way
before the perfumes that I burn in it ! Water return to
water, fire burn, air circulate, earth revert to earth, by
virtue of the pentagram, which is the morning star, and by
the name of the Tetragram, which is written in the centre of
the cross of light ! Amen.

The sign of the cross adopted by Christians does not
belong to them exclusively. It is also kabbalistic, and
represents the oppositions and tetradic equilibrium of the
elements. We see by the occult versicle of the Lord's
Prayer, which we have cited in our Doctrine, that it was
originally made after two manners, or at least that it was
characterised by two entirely different formulae, one reserved
for priests and initiates, the other imparted to neophytes
and the profane. For example, the initiate said, raising his
hand to his forehead, " For thine," then added " is," and
continuing as he brought down his hand to his breast, " the
kingdom," then to the left shoulder, " the justice," after-
wards to the right shoulder, " and the mercy " — then
clasping his hands, he added, " in the generating ages."
Tibi sunt Malchut et Geburah et Chesed per ceonas — a sign of
the cross which is absolutely and magnificently kabbalistic,
which the profanations of Gnosticism have completely lost
to the official and militant Church. This sign, made after
this manner, should precede and terminate the conjuration
of the four.

To overcome and subjugate the elementary spirits, we
must never yield to their characteristic defects. Thus, a
shallow and capricious mind will never rule the sylphs ; an
irresolute, cold, and fickle nature will never master the
undines ; passion irritates the salamanders, and avaricious
greed makes its slaves the sport of the gnomes. But we
must be prompt and active, like the sylphs ; pliant and
attentive to images, like the undines ; energetic and strong,
like the salamanders ; laborious and patient like the

THE CONJURATION OF THE FOUR 223

gnomes; in a word, we must overcome them in their
strength without ever being overcome by their weaknesses.
Once we are well established in this disposition, the whole
world will be at the service of the wise operator. He will
pass through the storm, and the rain will not moisten his
head ; the wind will not move even a fold of his garments ;
he will go through fire and not be burned ; he will walk
upon the water, and will behold diamonds within the crust
of the earth. These promises may appear hyperbolic, but
only to vulgar understanding, for if the sage do not materially
and actually perform these things, he accomplishes others
which are much greater and more admirable. At the same
time, it is indubitable that we may direct the elements by
our will up to a certain point, and can really change or
hinder their effects. For example, if it be established that
persons in an ecstatic state lose their weight for the time
being, why should it be impossible to walk upon the water ?
The convulsionaries of Saint Medard felt neither fire nor
steel, and begged for the most violent blows and incredible
tortures as a relief. The extraordinary climbings and
miraculous equilibrium of some somnambulists are a revela-
tion of these concealed forces of nature. But we live in a
century when no one has the courage to confess the wonders
he has witnessed, and "did any one say : " I have myself
beheld or performed the things which I am describing,"
he would be answered : " You are amusing yourself at our
expense, or, otherwise, you are ill." It is far better to be
silent and to act.

The metals which correspond to the four elementary
forms are gold and silver for the air, mercury for water,
iron and copper for fire, lead for earth. Talismans are
composed from these, relative to the forces which they
signify and to the effects which it is designed to obtain
from them. Divination by the four elementary forms,
respectively known as seromancy, hydromancy, pyromancy,
and geomancy, is performed after various manners, which
all depend on the will and the translucid, or imagination, of

224 THE RITUAL OP TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the operator. In fact, the four elements are only instru-
ments which assist second sight. Now, second sight is the
faculty of seeing in the astral light, and it is natural as the
first or sensible and ordinary sight, but it can only operate
by the abstraction of the senses. Somnambulists and
ecstatics enjoy second sight naturally, but this sight is more
lucid when the abstraction is more complete. Abstraction
is produced by astral intoxication, that is, by an excess of
light which completely saturates, and hence stupefies, the
nervous system.

Sanguine temperaments are disposed to seromancy, the
bilious to pyromancy, the phlegmatic to hydromancy, and
the melancholic to geomancy. ^Eromancy is confirmed by
oneiromaney, or divination by dreams ; pyromancy is sup-
plemented by magnetism ; hydromancy by crystallomancy ;
and geomancy by cartomancy. These are transpositions
and completement of methods. But divination, however
operated, is dangerous, or, to say the least, useless, for it
disheartens will, as a consequence, impedes liberty, and tires
the nervous system.

CHAPTER V

THE BLAZING PENTAGRAM

WE proceed to the explanation and consecration of the
sacred and mysterious pentagram. At this point, let the
ignorant and superstitious close the book ; they will either
see nothing but darkness, or they will be scandalised. The
pentagram, which, in gnostic schools, is called the blazing
star, is the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy.
It is the star of the magi ; it is the sign of the Word made
flesh ; and, according to the direction of its points, this
absolute magical symbol represents order or confusion, the

THE BLAZING PENTAGRAM 225

divine lamb of Ormuz and St John, or the accursed goat of
Mendes. It is initiation or profanation ; it is Lucifer or
Vesper, the star of the morning or the evening. It is Mary
or Lilith, victory or death, day or night. The pentagram
with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the
goat of the Sabbath ; when one point is in the ascendant, it
is the sign of the Saviour. The pentagram is the figure of
the human body, having the four limbs, and a single point
representing the head. A human figure, head downwards,
naturally represents a demon ; that is, intellectual subver-
sion, disorder, or madness. Now, if magic be a reality, if
occult science be really the true law of the three worlds,
this absolute sign, this sign ancient as history, and more
ancient, should and does actually exercise an incalculable
influence upon spirits set free from their material envelope.

The sign of the pentagram is called also the sign of the
microcosm, and it represents what the Kabbalists of the
book of Zohar term the microprosopus. The complete
comprehension of the pentagram is the key of the two
worlds. It is the absolute philosophy and natural science.
The sign of the pentagram should be composed of the seven
metals, or at least traced in pure gold upon white marble.
It may also be drawn with vermilion upon an unblemished
lambskin — the symbol of integrity and light. The marble
should be virgin, that is, should never have been used for
another purpose ; the lambskin should be prepared under
the auspices of the sun. The lamb must have been slain at
Paschal time, with a new knife, and the skin must be salted
with salt consecrated by magical operations. The omis-
sion of even one of these difficult and apparently arbitrary

^monies makes void the entire success of the great works

science.

The pentagram is consecrated with the four elements ;
magical figure is breathed on five times ; it is sprinkled
rith consecrated water ; it is dried by the smoke of five
perfumes, namely, incense, myrrh, aloes, sulphur, and
camphor, to which a little white resin and ambergris may

226 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

be added. The five breathings are accompanied by the
utterance of the names attributed to the five genii, who are
Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Samael, and Oriphiel ; afterwards
the pentacle is placed successively at the north, south, east,
west, and centre of the astronomical cross, pronouncing at
the same time, one after another, the letters of the sacred
tetragram, and then, in an undertone, the blessed names of
Aleph and the mysterious Thau, united in the Kabbalistic
name of AZOTH.

The pentagram should be placed upon the altar of
perfumes, and under the tripod of evocations. The operator
should also wear the sign as well as that of the macrocosm,
which is composed of two crossed and superposed triangles.
When a spirit of light is evoked, the head of the star — that
is, one of its points — should be directed towards the tripod
of evocations, and the two inferior points towards the altar
of perfumes. In the case of a spirit of darkness, the
opposite course is pursued, but then the operator must be
careful to set the end of the rod or the point of the sword
upon the head of the pentagram. We have already said
that signs are the active voice of the verb of will. Now,
the word of will must be given in its completeness, so that
it may be transformed into action ; and a single negligence,
representing an idle speech or a doubt, falsifies and para-
lyses the whole operation, turning back upon the operator
all the forces thus expended in vain. We must, therefore,
absolutely abstain from magical ceremonies or scrupulously
and exactly fulfil them all.

The pentagram, engraved in luminous lines upon glass by
the electrical machine, also exercises a great influence upon
spirits, and terrifies phantoms. The old magicians traced
the sign of the pentagram upon their door-steps, to prevent
evil spirits from entering and good spirits from departing.
This constraint followed from the direction of the points of
the star. Two points on the outer side drove away the
evil ; two points on the inner side imprisoned them -r one
only on the inner side held good spirits captive. All these

THE BLAZING PENTAGRAM 227

magical theories, based upon the one dogma of Hermes and
on tt^e analogical deductions of science, have been invariably
confirmed by the visions of ecstatics and by the convulsions
of cataleptics saying that they are possessed with spirits.
The G which Freemasons place in the middle of the blazing
star signifies GNOSIS and GENERATION, the two sacred words
of the ancient Kabbalah. It signifies also GRAND ARCHI-
TECT, for the pentagram on every side represents an A. By
placing it in such a way that two of its points are in the
ascendant and one is below, we may see the horns, ears and
beard of the hierarchic goat of Mendes, when it becomes the
sign of infernal evocations.

The allegorical star of the magi is no other than the
mysterious pentagram ; and those three kings, sons of
Zoroaster, conducted by the blazing star to the cradle of
the microcosmic God, are enough in themselves to demon-
strate the wholly kabbalistic and truly magical beginnings
of Christian doctrine. One of these kings is white, another
black, and the third brown. The white king offers gold,
symbol of light and life ; the black king presents myrrh,
image of death and of darkness ; the brown king sacrifices
incense, emblem of the conciliating doctrine of the two
principles. Then they return into their own land by
another road, to show that a new cultus is only a new
path, conducting man to the one religion, that of the sacred
triad and the radiant pentagram, the sole eternal Catholicism.
St John, in the Apocalypse, beholds this same star fall from
heaven to earth. It is then called absynth or wormwood,
and all the waters of the sea become bitter — striking image
of the materialisation of dogma, which produces fanaticism
and the acridities of controversy. Then unto Christianity
itself may be applied those words of Isaiah : " How hast
thou fallen from heaven, bright star, which wast so
splendid in thy prime ! " But the pentagram, profaned
by men, burns ever unclouded in the right hand of
the Word of Truth, and the inspired voice promises
to him that overcoineth the possession of the morning

228

THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

star — solemn restitution held out to the star of
Lucifer.

As will be seen, all mysteries of magic, all symbols of the
gnosis, all figures of occultism, all kabbalistic keys of pro-
phecy, are summed up in the sign of the pentagram, which
Paracelsus proclaims to be the greatest and most potent
of all signs. Is there any cause now for astonishment
at the conviction of the magus as to the real influence
exercised by this sign over the spirits of all hierarchies ?
Those who defy the sign of the cross tremble before the star
of the microcosm. On the contrary, when he is conscious

of failing will, the magus turns his eyes towards this symbol,
takes it in his right hand, and feels armed with intellectual
omnipotence, provided that he is truly a king, worthy to be
conducted by the star to the cradle of divine realisation ;
provided that he knows, dares, wills, and keeps silent ; pro-
vided that he is familiar with the usages of the pantacle, the
cup, the wand, and the sword ; provided, finally, that the
intrepid gaze of his soul corresponds to those two eyes which
the ascending point of our pentagram ever presents open.

THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR 229

CHAPTER VI.

THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR.

Two things, as we have already said, are necessary for the
acquisition of magical power — the emancipation of the will
from all servitude, and its instruction in the art of domina-
tion. The sovereign will is represented in our symbols by
the woman who crushes the serpent's head, and by the
radiant angel who restrains and constrains the dragon with
lance and heel. In this place let us affirm without evasions
that the great magical agent — the dual current of light, the
living and astral fire of the earth — was represented by the
serpent with the head of an ox, goat, or dog, in ancient
theogonies. It is the double serpent of the caduceus, the
old serpent of Genesis, but it is also the brazen serpent
of Moses, twisted round the tau, that is, the generating
lingam. It is, further, the goat of the Sabbath and the
Baphomet of the Templars ; it is the Hyle of the Gnostics ;
it is the double tail of the serpent which forms the legs of
the solar cock of Abraxas. In fine, it is the devil of
M. Eudes de Mirville, and is really the blind force which
souls must overcome if they would be free from the chains
of earth ; for, unless their will can detach them from this
fatal attraction, they will be absorbed in the current by the
force which produced them, and will return to the central
and eternal fire. The whole magical work consists, there-
fore, in our liberation from the folds of the ancient serpent,
then in setting a foot upon its head, and leading it where
we will. " I will give thee all the kingdoms of the earth,
if thou wilt fall down and adore me," said this serpent in
the evangelical mythos. The initiate should make answer :
" I will not fall down, and thou shalt crouch at my feet ;
nothing shalt thou give me, but I will make use of thee, and
will take what I require, for I am thy lord and master" —
a reply which, in a veiled manner, is contained in that of
the Saviour.

230 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

We have already said that the devil is not a person. It
is a misdirected force, as its name indicates. An odic or
magnetic current, formed by a chain of perverse wills, con-
stitutes this evil spirit, which the Gospel calls legion, and
this it is which precipitated the swine into the sea — another
allegory of the attraction exercised on beings of inferior in-
stincts by the blind forces that can be put in operation by
error and evil will. This symbol may be compared with
that of the comrades of Ulysses transformed into swine by
the sorceress Circe. Eemark what was done by Ulysses to
preserve himself and deliver his associates : he refused the
cup of the enchantress, and commanded her with the sword.
Circe is nature, with all her delights and allurements — to
enjoy her we must overcome her. Such is the significance
of the Homeric fable, for the poems of Homer, the true
sacred books of ancient Hellas, contain all the mysteries of
high oriental initiation.

The natural medium is, therefore, the serpent, ever active
and ever seducing, of idle wills, which we must continually
withstand by their subjugation. Amorous, gluttonous,
passionate, or idle magicians are impossible monstrosities.
The magus thinks and wills ; he loves nothing with desire ;
he rejects nothing in rage. The word passion signifies a
passive state, and the magus is invariably active, invariably
victorious. The attainment of this realisation is the crucial
difficulty of the transcendent sciences ; so when the magus
accomplishes his own creation, the great work is fulfilled, at
least as concerns cause and instrument. The great agent or
natural mediator of human omnipotence cannot be overcome
or directed save by an extra-natural mediator, which is an
emancipated will. Archimedes postulated a fulcrum outside
the world in order to raise the world. The fulcrum of the
magus is the intellectual cubic stone, the philosophical stone
of AZOTH — that is, the doctrine of absolute reason and
universal harmonies by the sympathy of contraries.

One of our most fertile writers, and one of those who are
the least fixed in their ideas, M. Eugene Sue, has founded a

THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR 231

vast romance-epic upon an individuality whom he strives to
render odious, who becomes interesting against the will of
the novelist, so abundantly does he gift him with patience,
audacity, intelligence, and genius. We are in the presence of
a kind of Sixtus V. — poor, temperate, passionless, holding the
entire world entangled in the web of his skilful combinations.
This man excites at will the passions of his enemies, destroys
them by means of one another, invariably reaches the point
he has kept in view, and this without noise, without osten-
tation, and without imposture. His object is to free the
world of a society which the author of the book believes to
be dangerous and malignant, and to attain it no cost is too
great ; he is ill lodged, ill clothed, nourished like the refuse
of humanity, but ever fixed upon his work. Consistently
with his intention, the author depicts him as wretched,
filthy, hideous, repulsive to the touch, and horrible to the
sight. But supposing this very exterior is a means of
disguising the enterprise, and so of more surely attaining it,
is it not proof positive of sublime courage ? When Eodin
becomes pope, do you think that he will still be ill clothed
and dirty ? Hence M. Eugene Sue has missed his point ;
his object was to deride superstition and fanaticism, but
what he attacks is intelligence, strength, genius, the most
signal human virtues. Were there many Eodins among the
Jesuits, were there one even, I would not give much for the
success of the opposite party, in spite of the brilliant and
maladroit special pleadings of its illustrious advocates.

To will well, to will long, to will always, but never
to lust after anything, such is the secret of power, and
this is the magical arcanum which Tasso brings forward
in the persons of the two knights who come to deliver
Einaldo and to destroy the enchantments of Armida.
They withstand equally the most charming nymphs
and the most terrible wild beasts. They remain with-
out desires and without fear, and hence they attain
their end. Does it follow from this that a true magician
inspires more fear than love ? I do not deny it, and while

232 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

abundantly recognising how sweet are the allurements of
life, while doing full justice to the gracious genius of
Anacreon, and to all the youthful efflorescence of the poetry
of love, I seriously invite the estimable votaries of pleasure
to regard the transcendental sciences merely as a matter of
curiosity, and never to approach the magical tripod; the
great works of science are deadly for pleasure.

The man who has escaped from the chain of instincts
will first of all realise his omnipotence by the submissive-
ness of animals. The history of Daniel in the lions' den is
no fable, and more than once, during the persecutions of
infant Christianity this phenomenon recurred in the presence
of the whole Eoman people. A man seldom has anything
to fear from an animal of which he is not afraid. The
bullets of Jules Gerard, the lion-killer, are magical and in-
telligent. Once only did he run a real danger ; he allowed
a timid companion to accompany him, and, looking upon this
imprudent person as lost beforehand, he also was afraid, not
for himself but for his comrade. Many persons will say
that it is difficult and even impossible to attain such
resolution, that strength in volition and energy in character
are natural gifts. I do not dispute it, but I would point
out also that habit can reform nature ; volition can be per-
fected by education, and, as I have before said, all magical,
like all religious, ceremonial has no other end but thus to test,
exercise, and habituate the will by perseverance and by force.
The more difficult and laborious the exercises, the greater
their effect, as we have now advanced far enough to see.

If it have been hitherto impossible to direct the pheno-
mena of magnetism, it is because an initiated and truly
emancipated operator has not yet appeared. Who can
boast that he is such ? Have we not ever new self-conquest?
to make ? At the same time, it is certain that natu
will obey the sign and the word of one who feels L
self strong enough to be convinced of it. I say tl
nature will obey ; I do not say that she will bely hers*
or disturb the order of her possibilities. The healing

THE MEDIUM AND MEDIATOR 233

nervous diseases by word, breath, or contact ; resurrection
in certain cases ; resistance of evil wills sufficient to disarm
and confound murderers ; even the faculty of making one's
self invisible by troubling the sight of those whom it is
important to elude ; all this is a natural effect of projecting
or withdrawing the astral light. Thus was Valentius
dazzled and terror-struck on entering the temple of Cesarea,
even as Heliodorus of old, overcome by a sudden madness
in the temple of Jerusalem, believed himself scourged and
trampled by angels. Thus also the Admiral de Coligny
imposed respect on his assassins, and could only be despatched
by a madman who fell upon him with averted head. What
rendered Joan of Arc invariably victorious was the fascina-
tion of her faith and the miracle of her audacity ; she
paralysed the arms of those who would have assailed her, and
the English may have very well been sincere in regarding
her as a witch or a sorceress. As a fact, she was a sorceress
unconsciously, herself believing that she acted supernatur-
ally, while she was really disposing of an occult force which
is universal and invariably governed by the same laws.

The magus-magnetiser should have command of the
natural medium, and, consequently, of the astral body by
which our soul communicates with our organs. He can say
to the material body, " Sleep ! " and to the sidereal body,
" Dream I " Thereupon, the aspect of visible things changes,
as in haschish-visions. Cagliostro is said to have possessed
this power, and he increased its action by means of fumiga-
tions and perfumes ; but true magnetic ability should tran-
scend these auxiliaries, all more or less inimical to reason
and destructive of health. M. Ragon, in his learned work
on Occult Masonry, gives the recipe for a series of medica-
ments suitable for the exaltation of somnambulism. It is
by no means a knowledge to be despised, but prudent
magists should avoid its practice.

The astral light is projected by glance, by voice, and by
the thumb and palm of the hand. Music is a potent
auxiliary of the voice, and hence comes the word enchant-

234 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ment. No musical instrument has more enchantment than
the human voice, but the far away notes of a violin or
harmonica may augment its power. The subject whom it is
proposed to overcome is in this way prepared ; then, when
he is half-deadened and, as it were, enveloped by the charm,
the hands should be extended towards him, he should be
commanded to sleep or to see, and he will obey despite
himself. Should he resist, a fixed glance must be directed
towards him, one thumb must be placed between his eyes
and the other on his breast, touching him lightly with a
single and swift contact ; the breath must be slowly drawn
in and again breathed gently and warmly forth, repeating
in a low voice, " Sleep ! " or " See ! "

CHAPTER VII.

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS.

CEREMONIES, vestments, perfumes, characters and figures,
being, as we have stated, necessary to enlist the imagination
in the education of the will, the success of magical works
depends upon the faithful observation of all the rites, which
are in no sense fantastic or arbitrary, having been trans-
mitted to us by antiquity, and permanently subsisting by
the essential laws of analogical realisation and of the corres-
pondence which inevitably connects ideas and forms. Having
spent many years in consulting and comparing all the most
authentic grimoires and magical rituals, we have succeeded,
not without labour, in reconstituting the ceremonial of
universal and primeval magic. The only serious books
which we have seen upon this subject are in manuscript,
written in conventional characters which we have deciphered
by the help of the polygraphy of Trithemius. The impor-
tance of others consists wholly in the hieroglyphs and

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 235

symbols which adorn them, the truth of the images being
disguised under the superstitious fictions of a mystifying
text. Such, for example, is the " Enchiridion " of Pope Leo
III., which has never been printed with its true figures, and
we have reconstructed it for our own use after an ancient
manuscript. The rituals known under the name of the
" Clavicles of Solomon " are very numerous. Many have
been printed, while others remain in manuscripts, trans-
cribed with great care. An exceedingly fine and elegantly
written example is preserved in the Imperial Library ; it is
enriched with pantacles and characters most of which have
been reproduced in the magical calendars of Tycho-Brahe
and Duchentau. Lastly, there are printed clavicles and
grimoires which are catch-penny mystifications and impos-
tures of dishonest publishers. The book so notorious and
•decried formerly under the name of " Little Albert " belongs
mainly to the latter category ; some talismanic figures, and
some calculations borrowed from Paracelsus, are its only
serious parts.

In any matter of realisation and ritual, Paracelsus is an
imposing magical authority. No one has accomplished
works greater than his, and for that very reason he conceals
the virtue of ceremonies and merely teaches in his occult
)hilosophy the existence of the magnetic agent of the omni-
mce of will ; he also sums the whole science of characters
two signs, the macrocosmic and microcosmic stars. It
fas sufficient for the adepts, and it was important not to
litiate the vulgar. Paracelsus, therefore, did not teach the
itual, but he practised, and his practice was a sequence of
iracles.

We have spoken of the magical importance of the triad
id tetrad. Their combination constitutes the great re-
igious and kabbalistic number which represents the uni-
synthesis and comprises the sacred septenary. In
le belief of the ancients, the world is governed by seven
mdary causes — secundcei, as Trithemius calls them —
rhich are the universal forces designated by Moses under

236 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the plural name of Eloim, gods. These forces, analogous and
contrary to one another, produce equilibrium by their con-
trasts, and rule the motion of the spheres. The Hebrews
termed them the seven great archangels, giving them the
names of Michael, Gabriel, Eaphael, Anael, Samael, Zadkiel,
and Oriphiel. The Christian Gnostics named the four last
Uriel, Barachiel, Sealtiel, and Jehudiel. Other nations
attributed to these spirits the government of the seven chief
planets, and gave them the names of their chief divinities.
All believed in their relative influence ; astronomy divided
the antique heaven between them, and allotted the seven
clays of the week to their successive government. Such is
the reason of the various ceremonies of the magical week
and the septenary cultus of the planets. We have already
observed that here the planets are signs and nothing else ; they
have the influence which universal faith attributes because
they are more truly the stars of the human mind than the orbs
of heaven. The sun, which antique magic always regarded
as fixed, could only be a planet for the vulgar ; hence it
represents the day of repose in the week, which we term
Sunday without knowing why, the day of the sun among
the ancients.

The seven magical planets correspond to the seven colours
of the prism and the seven notes of the musical octave ;
they represent also the seven virtues, and, by opposition,
the seven vices of Christian ethics. The seven sacraments
correspond equally to this great universal septenary. Bap-
tism, which consecrates the element of water, corresponds
to the moon ; ascetic penance is under the auspices of
Samael, the angel of Mars ; confirmation, which imparts the
spirit of understanding and communicates to the true be-
liever the gift of tongues, is under the auspices of Eaphael,
the angel of Mercury ; the Eucharist substitutes the sacra-
mental realisation of God made man for the empire of Jupiter ;
marriage is consecrated by the angel Anael, the purifying
genius of Venus ; extreme unction is the safeguard of the
sick about to fall under the scythe of Saturn, and orders,

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 237

consecrating the priesthood of light, is marked, more
especially by the characters of the sun. Almost all these
analogies were observed by the learned Dupuis, who thence
concluded that all religions were false, instead of recognising
the sanctity and perpetuity of a single dogma, ever repro-
duced in the universal symbolism of successive religious
forms. He failed to understand the permanent revelation
transmitted to human genius by the harmonies of nature,
and beheld only a catalogue of errors in that chain of
ingenious images and eternal truths.

Magical works are also seven in number : 1 , works of
light and riches, under the auspices of the sun ; 2, works of
divination and mystery, under the invocation of the moon ;
3, works of skill, science, and eloquence, under the protec-
tion of Mercury ; 4, works of wrath and chastisement,
consecrated to Mars ; 5, works of love, favoured by Venus ;
6, works of ambition and intrigue, under the auspices of
Jupiter ; 7, works of malediction and death, under the
patronage of Saturn. In theological symbolism, the sun
represents the word of truth ; the moon, religion itself ;
Mercury, the interpretation and science of mysteries ; Mars,
justice ; Venus, mercy and love ; Jupiter, the risen and
glorious Saviour ; Saturn, God the Father, or the Jehovah
of Moses. In the human body, the sun is analogous to the
heart, the moon to the brain, Jupiter to the right hand,
Saturn to the left, Mars to the left foot, Venus to the right,
Mercury to the generative organs, whence an androgyne
figure is sometimes attributed to this planet. In the human
face, the sun governs the forehead, Jupiter the right and
Saturn the left eye ; the moon rules between both at the
root of the nose, the two phlanges of which are governed
by Mars and Venus ; finally, the influence of Mercury is
exercised on mouth and chin. Among the ancients these
notions constituted the occult science of physiognomy, after-
wards imperfectly recovered by Lavater.

The magus who intends undertaking the works of light
must operate on a Sunday, from midnight to eight in the

238 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

morning, or from three in the afternoon to ten in the
evening. He should wear a purple vestment, with tiara
and bracelets of gold. The altar of perfumes and the tripod
of sacred fire must be encircled by wreaths of laurel, helio-
trope, and sunflowers ; the perfumes are cinnamon, strong
incense, saffron, and red sandal ; the ring must be of gold,
with a chrysolith or ruby ; the carpet must be of lion skins,
the fans of sparrow-hawk feathers. On Monday the robe is
white, embroidered with silver, and having a triple collar of
pearls, crystals, and selenite ; the tiara must be covered with
yellow silk, emblazoned with silver characters forming the
Hebrew monogram of Gabriel, as given in the " Occult
Philosophy " of Agrippa ; the perfumes are white sandal,
camphor, amber, aloes, and pulverised seed of cucumber;
the wreaths are mugwort, moonwort, and yellow ranunculuses.
Tapestries, garments, and objects of a black colour must be
avoided ; and no metal except silver should be worn on the
person. On Tuesday, a day for the operations of vengeance,
the colour of the vestment should be that of flame, rust, or
blood, with belt and bracelets of steel. The tiara must be
bound with gold ; the rod must not be used, but only the
magical dagger and sword ; the wreaths must be of absynth
and rue, the ring of steel, with an amethyst for precious
stone. On Wednesday, a day favourable for transcendent
science, the vestment should be green, or shot with various
colours, the necklace of pearls in hollow glass beads con-
taining mercury, the perfumes benzoin, mace, and storax,
the flowers, narcissus, lily, herb mercury, fumitory, and
marjolane ; the jewel should be the agate. On Thursday, a
day of great religious and political operations, the vestment
should be scarlet, and on the forehead should be worn a
brass tablet with the character of the spirit of Jupiter and
the three words : GIARAR, BETHOR, SAMGABIEL ; the perfumes
are incense, ambergris, balm, grain of paradise, macis, and
saffron ; the ring must be enriched with an emerald or
sapphire ; the wreaths and crowns should be oak, poplar,
fig and pomegranate leaves. On Friday, the day for

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 239

amorous operations, the vestment should be of sky blue, the
hangings of green and rose, the ornaments of polished
copper, the crowns of violets, the wreaths of roses, myrtle,
and olive ; the ring should be enriched with a turquoise ;
lapis-lazuli and beryl will answer for tiara and clasps ; the
fans must be of swan's feathers, and the operator must wear
upon his breast a copper talisman with the character of
Anael and the words : AVEEVA VADELILITH. On Saturday,
a day of funeral operations, the vestment must be black or
brown, with characters embroidered in black or orange
coloured silk ; on the neck must be worn a leaden medal
with the character of Saturn and the words : ALMALEC,
APHIEL, ZARAHIEL ; the perfumes should be diagridrium,
scammony, alum, sulphur, and assafcetida ; the ring should
be adorned with an onyx, the garlands should be of ash,
cypress, and hellebore ; on the onyx of the ring, during the
hours of Saturn, the double head of Janus should be
engraved with the consecrated awl.

Such are the antique magnificences of the secret
cultus of the magi With similar appointments the
great magicians of the Middle Ages proceeded to the
daily consecration of talismans corresponding to the
seven genii. We have already said that a pantacle is
a synthetic character resuming the entire magical
doctrine in one of its special conceptions. It is, therefore,
the full expression of a completed thought and will ; it is
the signature of a spirit. The ceremonial consecration of
this sign attaches to it still more strongly the intention of
the operator, and establishes a veritable magnetic chain
between himself and the pantacle. Pantacles may be in-
differently traced upon virgin parchment, paper, or metals.
What is termed a talisman is a sheet of metal, bearing
either pantacles or characters, and having received a special
consecration for a defined intention. In a learned work on
magical antiquities, Gaffarel has scientifically demonstrated
the real power of talismans, and the confidence in their virtue
is otherwise so strong in nature that we gladly bear about

240 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

us some memorial of those we love, persuaded that such
keepsakes will preserve us from danger and increase our
happiness. Talismans are made of the seven Kabbalistic
metals, and, when the days and hours are favourable, the
required and determined signs are engraved upon them.
The figures of the seven planets, with their magical squares,
following Paracelsus, are found in the " Little Albert." It
should be observed that Paracelsus replaces the figure of
Jupiter by that of a priest, a substitution not wanting in
a well-defined mysterious intention. But the allegorical
and mythological figures of the seven spirits have now
become too classical and too vulgar to be any longer suc-
cessfully engraved on talismans ; we must recur to more
learned and expressive signs. The pentagram should be
invariably engraved upon one side of the talisman, with a
circle for the sun, a crescent for the moon, for Mars a sword,
a G for Venus, for Jupiter a crown, and a scythe for Saturn.
The other side must bear the sign of Solomon, that is, the
six-pointed star composed of two superposed triangles ; in
the centre there is placed a human figure for the talismans
of the sun, a chalice for those of the moon, a dog's head for
those of Mercury, an eagle's for those of Jupiter, a lion's
head for those of Mars, a dove's for those of Venus, and a
bull's or goat's for those of Saturn. The names of the
seven angels are added either in Hebrew, in Arabic, or in
magical characters like those of the alphabet of Trithemius,
The two triangles of Solomon may be replaced by the double
cross of the wheels of Ezekiel, which is found on a great
number of ancient pantacles, and is, as we have observed in
our Doctrine, the key to the trigrammes of Fohi.

Precious stones may also be employed for amulets and
talismans ; but all objects of this nature, whether metals or
gems, must be carefully kept in silken bags of a colour
analogous to that of the spirit of the planet, perfumed with
the perfumes of the corresponding day, and preserved from
all impure glances and contacts. Thus, pantacles and talis-
mans of the sun must not be seen or touched by deformed

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 241

or misshapen persons, or by immoral women ; those of the
moon are profaned by the looks and hands of debauched
men and menstruating females ; those of Mercury lose their
virtue if seen or touched by paid priests ; those of Mars
must be concealed from cowards ; those of Venus from
depraved men and men under a vow of celibacy ; those of
Jupiter from the impious ; those of Saturn from virgins and
children, not that their looks or touches can ever be
impure, but because the talisman would bring them mis-
fortune and thus lose all its virtue.

Crosses of honour and other kindred decorations are
veritable talismans, which increase personal value and
merit ; they are consecrated by solemn investiture, and
public opinion can impart to them a prodigious power.
Sufficient attention has not been paid to the reciprocal
influence of signs on ideas and of ideas on signs ; it is not
less true that the revolutionary work of modern times, for
example, has been symbolically resumed in its entirety by
the Napoleonic substitution of the Star of Honour for the
Cross of St Louis. It is the pentagram in place of the
labarum, it is the reconstitution of the symbol of light, it is
the Masonic resurrection of Adonhiram. They say that
Napoleon believed in his star, and could he have been
persuaded to explain what he meant by this star, it would
have proved to be his genius ; he would therefore have
adopted the pentagram for his sign, that symbol of human
sovereignty by intelligent initiative. The mighty soldier of
the Eevolution knew little, but he divined almost every-
thing ; so was he the greatest instinctive and practical
magician of modern times ; the world is still full of his
miracles, and the country people will never believe that he
is dead.

Blessed and indulgenced objects, touched by holy images
or venerable persons ; chaplets from Palestine ; the Agmis
Dei, composed of the wax of the Paschal candle, and the
annual remnants of holy chrism ; scapulas and medals, are
all true talismans. One such medal has become popular

Q

242 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

in our own day, and even those who are devoid of religion
suspend it from the necks of their children. Moreover, its
figures are so perfectly Kabbalistic that it is truely a
marvellous double pantacle. On the one side is the great
initiatrix, the heavenly mother of the Zohar, the Isis of
Egypt, the Venus-Urania of the Platonists, the Mary of
Christianity, throned upon the world, and setting one
foot upon the head of the magical serpent. She extends
her two hands in such a manner as to form a triangle,
of which her head is the apex ; her hands are open
and radiant, thus making a double triangle, with all the
beams directed towards the earth, evidently representing
the emancipation of intelligence by labour. On the other
side is the double Tau of the hierophants, the Lingam with
the double Cteis, or the triple Phallus, supported, with
interlacement and repeated insertion, by the kabbalistic and
masonic M, representing the square between the two pillars
JAKIN and BOHAS ; below are placed, upon the same plane,
two loving and suffering hearts, with twelve pentagrams
around them. Every one will tell you that the wearers
of this medal do not attach such significance to it, but it is
only on that account more absolutely magical ; having a
double sense, and, consequently, a double virtue. The
ecstatic on the authority of whose revelations this talisman
was engraved, had already beheld it existing perfectly in
the astral light, which once more demonstrates the intimate
connection of ideas and signs, and gives a new sanction to
the symbolism of universal magic.

The greater the importance and solemnity brought to
bear on the confection and consecration of talismans and
pentacles, the more virtue they acquire, as will be under-
stood upon the evidence of the principles which we have
established. This consecration should take place on the days
we have indicated, with the appointments which we have
given in detail. Talismans are consecrated by the four
exorcised elements, after conjuring the spirits of darkness by
the Conjuration of the Four. Then, taking up the pantacle,

THE SEPTENAKY OF TALISMANS 243

and sprinkling it with some drops of magical water, say : In
the name of Elohim and by the spirit of the living waters,
be thou unto me a sign of light and a sacrament of will !

Presenting it to the smoke of the perfumes : By the
brazen serpent which destroyed the serpents of fire, be
thou, &c.

Breathing seven times upon the pantacle or talisman :
By the firmament and spirit of the voice, be thou, &c.

Lastly, placing some particles of purified earth or salt
triadwise upon it : In the salt of earth, and by the virtue
of eternal life, be thou, &c.

Then recite the Conjuration of the Seven as follows,
alternately casting a pastille of the seven perfumes into the
sacred fire :

In the name of Michael, may Jehovah command thee,
and drive thee hence, Chavajoth !

In the name of Gabriel, may Adona'i command thee, and
drive thee hence, Belial !

In the name of Eaphael, begone before Elchim, Sacha-
biel !

By Samael Zebaoth, and in the name of Eloim Gibor,
get thee hence, Adrameleck !

By Zachariel and Sachiel-Meleck, be obedient unto
Elvah, Samgabiel !

By the divine and human name of Schaddai', and by
the sign of the pentagram which I hold in my right hand,
in the name of the angel Anael, by the power of Adam and
of Heva, who are Jotchavah, begone, Lilith ! Let us rest in
peace, Nahemah !

By the holy Eloim and by the names of the genii
Cashiel, Sehaltiel, Aphiel, and Zarahiel, at the command
of Orifiel, depart from us, Moloch ! We deny thee our
children to devour.

The most important magical instruments are the rod, the
sword, the lamp, the chalice, the altar, and the tripod. In
the operations of transcendent and divine magic, the lamp,
rod, and chalice are used ; in the works of black magic, the

MAGICAL INSTRUMENTS.
Lamp, rod, swordt and dagger.

244

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 245

rod is replaced by the sword and the lamp by the candle of
Cardan. We shall explain this difference in the chapter
devoted to black magic. Let us come now to the descrip-
tion and consecration of the instruments. The magical rod,
which must not be confounded with the simple divining
rod, with the fork of necromancers, or the trident of Para-
celsus, the true and absolute magical rod, must be one per-
fectly straight beam of almond or hazel, cut at a single
blow with the magical pruning - knife or golden sickle,
before the rising of the sun, at that moment when the tree
is ready to blossom. It must be pierced through its whole
length without splitting or breaking it, and a long needle of
magnetized iron must fill its entire extent ; to one of its
extremities must be fitted a polyhedral prism, cut in a
triangular shape, and to the other a similar figure of black
resin. Two rings, one of copper, and one of zinc, must be
placed at the centre of the rod ; subsequently, the rod must
be gilt at the resin end, and silvered at the prism end as
far as the ringed centre ; it must then be covered with silk,
the extremities not included. On the copper ring these
characters must be engraved : nKHpnD^SW* and on the zinc
ring : HD^ "]tan. The consecration of the rod must last
seven days, beginning at the new moon, and should be made
by an initiate possessing the great arcana, and having him-
self a consecrated rod. This is the transmission of the
magical secret, which has never ceased since the shrouded
origin of the transcendent science. The rod and the other
instruments, but the rod above all, must be concealed with
care, and under no pretext should the magus permit them
to be seen or touched by the profane ; otherwise they will
lose all their virtue. The mode of transmitting the rod is
one of the arcana of science, the revelation of which is never
permitted. The length of the magical rod must not exceed
that of the operator's arm ; the magician must never use it
unless he is alone, and should not even then touch it with-
out necessity. Many ancient magi made it only the
length of the forearm and concealed it beneath their long

246 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

mantles, shewing only the simple divining rod in public, or
some allegorical sceptre made of ivory or ebony, according
to the nature of the works. Cardinal Richelieu, always
athirst for power, sought through his whole life the trans-
mission of the rod, without being able to find it. His
Kabbalist Gaffarel could furnish him with sword and talis-
mans alone ; this was possibly the secret motive for the
cardinal's hatred of Urbain Grandier, who knew something
of his weaknesses. The secret and prolonged conversations
of Laubardement with the unhappy priest some hours before
his final torture, and those words of a friend and confidant
of the latter, as he went forth to death — " You are a clever
man, monsieur, do not destroy yourself " — afford consider-
able food for thought.

The magical rod is the verendum of the magus ; it must
not even be mentioned in any clear and precise manner ;
no one should boast of its possession, nor should its con-
secration ever be transmitted except under the conditions of
absolute discretion and confidence.

The sword is less occult, and is made in the following
manner : — It must be of pure steel, with a cruciform copper
handle having three pommels, as represented in the enchiri-
dion of Leo III, or with the guard of a double crescent, as
in our own figure. On the middle knot of the guard, which
should be covered with a golden plate, the sign of the
macrocosm must be chased on one side, and that of
the microcosm on the other. The Hebrew monogram of
Michael, as found in Agrippa, must be engraved on the
pommel; on the one side of the blade must be these
characters : roioa •»& mm D^fcO, and on the other the mono-
gram of the Labarum of Constantino, followed by the words :
Vince in hoc, Deo duce, comite ferro. For the authenticity
and exactitude of these figures, see the best ancient editions
of the " Enchiridion." The consecration of the sword must
take place on a Sunday, during the hours of the sun, under
the invocation of Michael. The blade of the sword must
be placed in a fire of laurel and cypress ; it must then be

THE SEPTENARY OF TALISMANS 247

dried and polished with ashes of the sacred fire, moistened
with the blood of a rnole or serpent, the following words
being said : — Be thou unto me as the sword of Michael, by
virtue of Eloi'm Sabaoth, may spirits of darkness and reptiles
of earth flee away from thee ! — It is then fumigated with
the perfumes of the sun, and wrapped up in silk, together
with branches of vervain, which should be burned on the
seventh day.

The magical lamp must be composed of the four metals —
gold, silver, brass and iron ; the pedestal should be of iron,
the mirror of brass, the reservoir of silver, the triangle at the
apex of gold. It should be provided with two arms com-
posed of a triple pipe of three intertwisted metals, in such
a manner that each arm has a triple conduit for the oil ;
there must be nine wicks in all, three at the top and three
in each arm. The seal of Hermes must be engraved on the
pedestal, over which must be the two-headed androgyne of
Khunrath. A serpent devouring its own tail must encircle
the lower part. The sign of Solomon must be chased on the
reservoir. Two globes must be fitted to this lamp, one
adorned with transparent pictures, representing the seven
genii, while the other, of larger size and duplicated, should
contain variously tinted waters in four compartments. The
whole instrument should be placed in a wooden pillar, re-
volving on its own axis, and permitting a ray of light to
escape, as required, and fall on the altar smoke at the
moment for the invocations. This lamp is a great aid to
the intuitive operations of slow imaginations, and for the
immediate creation in the presence of magnetised persons of
forms alarming in their actuality, which, being multiplied
by the mirrors, will magnify suddenly, and transform the
operator's cabinet into a vast hall filled with visible souls ;
the intoxication of the perfumes and the exaltation of the
invocations will speedily change this fantasia into a real
dream ; persons formerly known will be recognised, phan-
toms will speak, and something extraordinary and unexpected
will follow the closing of the light within the pillar and the
ncrease of the fumigations.

248 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER VIII

A WARNING TO THE IMPRUDENT

THE operations of science are not devoid of danger, as we
have stated several times. They may end in madness for
those who are not established firmly on the basis of supreme,
absolute, and infallible reason. Terrible and incurable
diseases can be occasioned by excessive nervous excitement.
Swoons and death itself, as a consequence of cerebral con-
gestion, may result from imagination when it is unduly im-
pressed and terrified. We cannot sufficiently dissuade
nervous persons, and those who are naturally disposed to
exaltation, women, young people, and all who are not
habituated in perfect self-control and the command of their
fear. In the same way, there can be nothing more dan-
gerous than to make magic a pastime, or, as some do, a part
of an evening's entertainment. Even magnetic experiments,
performed under such conditions, can only exhaust the sub-
jects, mislead opinions, and defeat science. The mysteries
of life and death cannot be made sport of with impunity,
and things which are to be taken seriously must be treated not
only seriously but also with the greatest reserve. Never yield
to the desire of convincing others by phenomena. The most
astounding phenomena would not be proofs for those who
are not already convinced. They can always be attributed
to ordinary artifices and the magus included among the more
or less skilful followers of Eobert Houdin or Hamilton. To
require prodigies as a warrant for believing in science is to
shew one's self unworthy or incapable of science. SANCTA
SANCTIS. Contemplate the twelfth figure of the Tarot-keys,
remember the grand symbol of Prometheus, and be silent.
All those magi who divulged their works died violently, and
many were driven to suicide, like Cardan, Schroppfer, Cag-
liostro, and others. The magus should live in retirement,
and be approached with difficulty. This is the significance
of the ninth key of the Tarot, where the initiate appears as

A WARNING TO THE IMPRUDENT 249

a hermit completely shrouded in his cloak. Such retirement
must not, however, be one of isolation ; attachments and
friendships are necessary, but he must choose them with
care and preserve them at all price. He must also have
another profession than that of magician; magic is not a trade.
In order to devote ourselves to ceremonial magic, we
must be free from anxious preoccupations ; we must be in a
position to procure all the instruments of the science, and
be able to make them when needed ; we must also possess
an inaccessible laboratory, in which there will be no danger
of ever being surprised or disturbed. Then, and this is an
indispensable condition, we must know how to equilibrate
forces and restrain the zeal of our initiative. This is the
meaning of the eighth key of Hermes, wherein a woman is
seated between two pillars, with an upright sword in one
hand and a balance in the other. To equilibrate forces
they must be simultaneously maintained and made to act
alternately ; the use of the balance represents this double
action. The same arcanum is typified by the dual cross in
the pantacles of Pythagoras and Ezekiel (see the plate which
appears on p. 166 in the " Doctrine "), where the crosses
equilibrate each other and the planetary signs are always in
opposition. Thus, Venus is the equilibrium of the works
of Mars ; Mercury moderates and fulfils the operations of
the Sun and Moon ; Saturn balances Jupiter. It was by
means of this antagonism between the ancient gods that
Prometheus, that is to say, the genius of science, contrived
to enter Olympus and carry off fire from heaven. Is it
necessary to speak more clearly ? The milder and calmer
you are, the more effective will be your anger ; the more
energetic you are, the more precious will be your forbearance ;
the more skilful you are, the better will you profit by your I
intelligence and even by your virtues ; the more indifferent I
you are, the more easily will you make yourself loved. I
This is a matter of experience in the moral order, and is
literally realised in the sphere of action. Human passions
produce blindly the opposites of their unbridled desire, when .

250 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

they act without direction. Excessive love produces anti-
pathy ; blind hate counteracts and scourges itself ; vanity
leads to abasement and the most cruel humiliations. Thus,
the Great Master revealed a mystery of positive magical
science when He said, " Forgive your enemies, do good to
those that hate you, so shall ye heap coals of fire upon their
heads." Perhaps this kind of pardon seems hypocrisy and
bears a strong likeness to refined vengeance. But we must
remember that the magus is sovereign, and a sovereign never
avenges because he has the right to punish ; in the exercise
of this right he performs his duty, and is implacable as
justice. Let it be observed, for the rest, so that no one
may misinterpret my meaning, that it is a question of
chastising evil by good and opposing mildness to violence.
If the exercise of virtue be a flagellation for vice, no one
has the right to demand that it should be spared, or that
we should take pity on its shame and its sufferings.

The man who dedicates himself to the works of science
must take moderate daily exercise, abstain from prolonged
vigils, and follow a wholesome and regular rule of life. He
must avoid the effluvia of putrefaction, the neighbourhood
of stagnant water, and indigestible or impure food. Above
all, he must daily seek relaxation from magical preoccu-
pations amongst material cares, or in labour, whether
artistic, industrial, or commercial. The way to see well is
not to be always looking ; and he who spends his whole life
upon one object will end without attaining it. Another
precaution must be equally observed, and that is never to
experiment when ill.

The ceremonies being, as we have said, artificial methods
for creating a habit of will become unnecessary when the
habit is confirmed. It is in this sense, and addressing him-
self solely to perfect adepts, that Paracelsus proscribes their
use in his Occult Philosophy. They must be progressively
simplified before they are dispensed with altogether, and in
proportion to the experience we obtain in acquired powers,
and established habit in the exercise of extra-natural will.

THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES 251

CHAPTEK IX

THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES

THE science is preserved by silence and perpetuated by
initiation. The law of silence is not, therefore, absolute
and inviolable, except relatively to the uninitiated multi-
tude. The science can only be transmitted by speech.
The sages must therefore speak occasionally. Yes, they
must speak, not to disclose, but to lead others to discover.
Noli ire, fac venire, was the device of Eabelais, who, being
master of all the sciences of his time, could not be unac-
quainted with magic. We have, consequently, to reveal
here the mysteries of initiation. The destiny of man, as we
have said, is to make or create himself ; he is, and he will
be, the son of his works, both for time and eternity. All
men are called on to compete, but the number of the elect
— that is, of those who succeed — is invariably small. In
other words, the men who are desirous to attain are
numbered by multitudes, but the chosen are few. Now,
the government of the world belongs by right to the flower
of mankind, and when any combination or usurpation pre-
vents their possessing it, a political or social cataclysm
ensues. Men who are masters of themselves become easily
masters of others ; but it is possible for them to hinder one
another if they disregard the laws of discipline and of the
universal hierarchy. To be subject to a discipline in com-
mon, there must be a community of ideas and desires, and
such a communion cannot be attained except by a common
religion established on the very foundations of intelligence
and reason. This religion has always existed in the world,
and is that only which can be called one, infallible, in-
defectible, and veritably catholic — that is, universal. This
religion, of which all others have been successively the veils
and the shadows, is that which demonstrates being by being,
truth by reason, reason by evidence and common sense. It

252 THE EITUAL OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

is that which proves by realities the reasonable basis of
hypotheses, and forbids reasoning upon hypotheses indepen-
dently of realities. It is that which is grounded on the
doctrine of universal analogies, but never confounds the
things of science with those of faith. It can never be
of faith that two and one make more or less than three ;
that in physics the contained can exceed the container ;
that a solid body, as such, can act like a fluidic or gaseous
body ; that, for example, a human body can pass through a
closed door without dissolution or opening. To say that one
believes such a thing is to talk like a child or a fool ; yet
it is no less insensate to define the unknown, and to argue
from hypothesis to hypothesis, till we come to deny evidence
& priori for the affirmation of precipitate suppositions. The
wise man affirms what he knows, and believes in what he
does not know only in proportion to the reasonable and
known necessities of hypothesis.

But this reasonable religion is unadapted for the multi-
tude, for which fables, mysteries, definite hopes, and terrors
having a physical basis, are needful. It is for this reason
that the priesthood has been established in the world. Now,
the priesthood is recruited by initiation. Religious forms
perish when initiation ceases in the sanctuary, whether
by the betrayal of the mysteries, or by their neglect and
oblivion. The Gnostic disclosures, for example, alienated
the Christian Church from the high truths of the Kabbalah,
which contains all the secrets of transcendental theology.
Hence, the blind, having become leaders of the blind, great
obscurities, great lapses, and deplorable scandals have fol-
lowed. Subsequently, the sacred books, of which the keys
are all kabbalistic, from Genesis to the Apocalypse, have
become so little intelligible to Christians, that pastors have
reasonably judged it necessary to forbid their being read by
the uninstructed among believers. Taken literally, and
understood materially, these books would be only an incon-
ceivable tissue of absurdities and scandals, as the school of
Voltaire has too well demonstrated. It is the same with

THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES 253

all the ancient dogmas, their brilliant theogonies and poetic
legends. To say that the ancients of Greece believed in the
love-adventures of Jupiter, or those of Egypt in the cyno-
cephalus and sparrow-hawk, is to exhibit as much ignorance
and bad faith as would be shown by maintaining that
Christians adore a triple God, composed of an old man, an
executed criminal, and a pigeon. The ignorance of symbols
is invariably calumnious. For this reason we should always
guard against the derision of that which we do not know,
when its enunciation seems to involve some absurdity or
even singularity, as a course no less wanting in good sense
than to admit the same without discussion and examination.
Prior to anything which may please or displease ourselves,
there is a truth — that is to say, a reason — and by this
reason must our actions be regulated rather than by our
desires, if we would create that intelligence within
us which is the raison d'Stre of immortality, and that
justice which is the law thereof. A man who is truly
man can only will that which he should reasonably and
justly do ; so does he silence lusts and fears that he
may hearken solely to reason. Now, such a man is a
natural king and a spontaneous priest for the wandering
multitudes. Hence it was that the end of the old initia-
tions was indifferently termed the sacerdotal art and the
royal art. The antique magical associations were seminaries
for priests and kings, and admission could only be obtained
by truly sacerdotal and royal works ; that is, by placing
.e's self above all the weaknesses of nature. We will not
t here what is found everywhere concerning the
ptian initiations, perpetuated, but with diminished
power, in the secret societies of the Middle Ages. Chris-
tian radicalism, founded upon a false understanding of the
words : " Ye have one father, one master, and ye are all
brethren," dealt a terrible blow at the sacred hierarchy.
Since that time, sacerdotal dignities have become a matter of
intrigue or of chance ; energetic mediocrity has managed to
supplant modest superiority, misunderstood because of its

254 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

modesty ; yet, and notwithstanding, initiation being an
essential law of religious life, a society which is instinctively
magical formed at the decline of the pontifical power, and
speedily concentrated in itself alone the entire strength of
Christianity, because, though it only understood vaguely, it
exercised positively the hierarchic power resident in the
ordeals of initiation, and the omnipotence of faith in passive
obedience.

What, in fact, did the candidate in the old initiations ?
He entirely abandoned his life and liberty to the masters of
the temples of Thebes or Memphis ; he advanced resolutely
through unnumbered terrors, which might have led him to
imagine that there was a premeditated outrage intended
against him ; he ascended funeral pyres, swam torrents of
black and raging water, hung by unknown counterpoises
over unfathomed precipices . . . Was not all this a blind
obedience in the full force of the term ? Is it not the
most absolute exercise of liberty to abjure liberty for a time
so that we may attain emancipation ? Now, this is pre-
cisely what must be done, and what has been done invariably,
by those who aspire to the sanctum regnum of magical omni-
potence. The disciples of Pythagoras condemned themselves
to inexorable silence for many years ; even the sectaries of
Epicurus only comprehended the sovereignty of pleasure by
the acquisition of sobriety and calculated temperance. Life
is a warfare in which we must give proofs if we would advance ;
power does not surrender of itself ; it must be seized.

Initiation by contest and ordeal is therefore indispensable
for the attainment of the practical science of magic. We
have already indicated after what manner the four element-
ary forms may be overcome, and will not repeat it here ;
we refer those of our readers who would inquire into the-
ceremonies of ancient initiations to the works of Baron
Tschoudy, author of the " Blazing Star," " Adonhiramite-
Masonry," and some other most valuable masonic treatises.

Here we would insist upon a reflection, namely, that the
intellectual and social chaos in the midst of which we are

THE CEREMONIAL OF INITIATES 255

perishing, has been caused by the neglect of initiation, with
its ordeals and its mysteries. Men, whose zeal was greater
than their science, carried away by the popular maxims of
the Gospel, came to believe in the primitive and absolute
equality of men. A famous hallucint, the eloquent and
unfortunate Eousseau, propagated this paradox with all the
magic of his style — that society alone depraves men — much
as if he had said that competition and emulation in labour
renders workmen idle. The essential law of nature, that of
initiation by works and of voluntary and toilsome progress,
has been fatally misconstrued ; masonry has had its deserters,
as Catholicism its apostates. What has been the con-
sequence ? The substitution of the steel plane for the
intellectual and symbolical plane. To preach equality to
what is beneath, without instructing it how to rise upward,
is not this binding us to descend ourselves ? And hence
we have descended to the reign of the carmagnola, the sans-
cullotes, and Marat. To restore tottering and distracted
society, the hierarchy and initiation must be again estab-
lished. The task is difficult, but the whole intelligent world
feels that it is necessary to undertake it. Must we pass
through another deluge before succeeding ? We earnestly
trust not, and this book, perhaps the greatest but not the
last of our audacities, is an appeal unto all that is yet alive
for the reconstitution of life in the very middle of decom-
position and death.

256 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER X

THE KEY OF OCCULTISM

LET us now examine the question of pantacles, for all
magical virtue is there, since the secret of force is in the
intelligence which directs. We have already given the
symbol and interpretation of the pantacles of Pythagoras
and Ezekiel, so that we have no need to recur to these ; we
shall prove in a later chapter that all the instruments of
Hebrew worship were pantacles, and that the first and final
word of the Bible was written in gold and in brass by
Moses, in the tabernacle and on all its accessories. But
each magus can and should have his individual pantacle, for,
understood accurately, a pantacle is the perfect summary of
a mind. Hence we find in the magical calendars of Tycho
Brahe and Duchentau, the pantacles of Adam, Job, Jere-
miah, Isaiah, and of all the other great prophets who have
been, each in his turn, the kings of the Kabbalah and the
grand rabbins of science.

The pantacle, being a complete and perfect synthesis,
expressed by a single sign, serves to focus all intellectual
strength into a glance, a recollection, a touch. It is, so to
speak, a starting-point for the efficient projection of the will.
Nigromancers and goetic magicians traced their infernal
pantacles on the skin of the victims they immolated. The
sacrificial ceremonies, the manner of skinning the kid, then
of salting, drying, and whitening the skin, are given in a
number of clavicles and grimoires. Some Hebrew kabbalists
fell into similar follies, forgetting the anathemas pronounced
in the Bible against those who sacrifice on high places or in
the caverns of the earth. All spilling of blood operated
ceremonially is abominable and impious, and since the
death of Adonhiram the Society of true Adepts has a horror
of blood — Ecclesia abhorret h sanguine.

The initiatory symbolism of pantacles adopted throughout

THE KEY OF OCCULTISM 257

the east is the key of all ancient and modern mythologies.
Apart from the knowledge of the hieroglyphic alphabet, one
would be lost among the obscurities of the Vedas, the Zend-
Avesta, and the Bible. The tree which brings forth good
and evil, the source of the four rivers, one of which waters
the land of gold, that is, of light, and another flows through
Ethiopia, or the kingdom of darkness ; the magnetic serpent
who seduces the woman, and the woman who seduces the
man, thus making known the law of attraction ; sub-
sequently the Cherub or Sphinx placed at the gate of the
Edenic sanctuary, with the fiery sword of the guardians of
the symbol ; then regeneration by labour and propagation
by sorrow, which is the law of initiations and ordeals ; the
division of Cain and Abel, which is the same symbol as the
strife of Anteros and Eros ; the ark borne upon the waters
of the deluge like the coffer of Osiris ; the black raven who
does not return and the white dove who does, a new setting
forth of the dogma of antagonism and balance — all these
magnificent kabbalistic allegories of Genesis, which, taken
literally, and accepted as actual histories, merit even more
derision and contempt than Voltaire heaped upon them,
become luminous for the initiate, who still hails with
enthusiasm and love the perpetuity of the true doctrine and
the universality of initiation identical in all sancluaries of
the world.

The five books of Moses, the prophecy of Ezekiel, and the
ipocalypse of St John are the three kabbalistic keys of the
rhole Biblical edifice. The sphinxes of Ezekiel are identical
tith those of the sanctuary and the ark, and are a quadruple
>roduction of the Egyptian tetrad ; the wheels revolving
one another are the harmonious spheres of Pythagoras ;
le new temple, the plan of which is given according to
wholly kabbalistic measures, is the type of the labours of
imitive masonry. St John, in his Apocalypse, reproduces
the same images and the same numbers, and reconstructs
the Edenic world ideally in the New Jerusalem ; but at the
source of the four rivers the solar lamb replaces the mysteri-

E

258 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ous tree. Initiation by toil and blood has been accom-
plished, and there is no more temple because the light of
truth is universally diffused, and the world has become the
temple of justice. This splendid final vision of the Holy
Scriptures, this divine Utopia which the Church has re-
ferred with good reason for its realisation to a better life,
has been the pitfall of all ancient arch-heretics and of many
modern idealists. The simultaneous emancipation and
absolute equality of all men involve the arrest of progress
and consequently of life; in a world where all are equal
there could no longer be infants or the aged ; birth and
death could not therefore be admitted. This is sufficient to
demonstrate that the New Jerusalem is no more of this
world than the primeval paradise, wherein there was no
knowledge of good or evil, of liberty, of generation, or of
death; the cycle of our religious symbolism begins and
ends therefore in eternity.

Dupuis and Volney lavished their great erudition to
discover this relative identity of all symbols, and arrived at
the negation of every religion. We attain by the same
path to a diametrically opposed affirmation, and we recog-
nise with admiration that there have never been any false
religions in the civilised world ; that the divine light, the
splendour of the supreme reason of the Logos, of that word
which enlightens every man coming into the world, has
been no more wanting to the children of Zoroaster than to
the faithful sheep of St Peter ; that the permanent, the one,
the universal revelation, is written in visible nature, ex-
plained in reason, and completed by the wise analogies of
faith ; that there is, finally, but one true religion, one
doctrine, and one legitimate belief, even as there is but one
God, one reason, and one universe ; that revelation is obscure
for no one, since the whole world understands more or less
both truth and justice, and since all that is possible can only
exist analogically to what is. BEING is BEING,

The apparently bizarre figures presented by the Apocalypse

THE KEY OF OCCULTISM 259

of St John are hieroglyphics, like those of all oriental
mythologies, and can be comprised in a series of pantacles.
The initiator, clothed in white, standing between seven
golden candlesticks and holding seven stars in his hand,
represents the unique doctrine of Hermes and the universal
analogies of the light. The woman clothed with the sun
and crowned with twelve stars is the celestial Isis, or the
gnosis ; the serpent of material life seeks to devour her
child, but she takes unto herself the wings of the eagle and
flies away into the desert — a protestation of the prophetic
spirit against the materialism of official religion. The
mighty angel with the face of a sun, a rainbow for nimbus,
and a cloud for vestment, having pillars of fire for his legs,
and setting one foot upon the earth and another on the
sea, is truly a kabbalistic Panthea. His feet represent the
equilibrium of BRIAH, or the world of forms ; his legs are
the two pillars of the Masonic temple, JAKIN and BOHAS ;
his body, veiled by clouds, from which issues a hand holding
a book, is the sphere of JETZIRAH, or initiatory ordeals ; his
solar head, crowned with the radiant septenary, is the world
of ATZILUTH, or perfect revelation; and we can only be
excessively astonished that Hebrew kabbalists have not
recognised and made known this symbolism, which so closely
and inseparably connects the highest mysteries of Christi-
anity with the secret but invariable doctrine of all the masters
in Israel. The beast with seven heads, in the symbolism of
>t John, is the material and antagonistic negation of the
iminous septenary ; the Babylonian harlot corresponds
ter the same manner to the woman clothed with the sun ;
four horsemen are analogous to the four allegorical
limals ; the seven angels with their seven trumpets, seven
cups, and seven swords characterise the absolute of the
struggle of good against evil by speech, by religious associa-
tion, and by force. Thus are the seven seals of the occult
book successively opened, and universal initiation is accom-
plished. The commentators who have sought anything else
in this book of the transcendent Kabbalah have lost their

260 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

time and their trouble only to make themselves ridiculous.
To discover Napoleon in the angel Apollyon, Luther in the
star which falls from heaven, Voltaire or Rousseau in the
grasshoppers armed like warriors, is merely high fantasy.
It is the same with all the violence done to the names of
celebrated persons so as to make them numerically equivalent
to the fatal number 666, which we have already sufficiently
explained ; and when we think that men like Bossuet and
Newton amused themselves with such chimeras, we can
understand that humanity is not so malicious in its nature
as might be supposed from the complexion of its vices.

CHAPTEE XI

THE TRIPLE CHAIN

THE great work in practical magic, after the education of
the will and the personal creation of the magus, is the for-
mation of the magnetic chain, and this secret is truly that
of priesthood and of royalty. To form the magnetic chain
is to originate a current of ideas which produces faith and
draws a large number of wills in a given circle of active
manifestation. A well-formed chain is like a whirlpool
which sucks down and absorbs all. The chain may be
established in three ways — by signs, by speech, and by
contact. The first is by inducing opinion to adopt some
sign as the representation of a force. Thus, all Christians
communicate by the sign of the cross, masons by that of the
square beneath the sun, the magi by that of the microcosm,
made by extending the five fingers, etc. Once accepted and
propagated, signs acquire force of themselves. In the early
centuries of our era, the sight and imitation of the sign of
the cross was enough to make proselytes to Christianity.
What is called the miraculous medal continues in our own

THE TRIPLE CHAIN 261

days to effect a great number of conversions by the same
magnetic law. The vision and illumination of the young
Israelite, Alphonse de Ratisbonne, is the most remarkable
fact of this kind. Imagination is creative not only within
us but without us by means of our fluidic projections, and
undoubtedly the phenomena of the labarum of Constantine
and the cross of Migne* should be attributed to no other
cause.

The magic chain of speech was typified among the
ancients by chains of gold, which issued from the mouth
of Hermes. Nothing equals the electricity of eloquence.
Speech creates the highest intelligence in the most grossly con-
stituted masses. Even those who are too remote for actual
hearing understand by excitement, and are carried away
with the crowd. Peter the Hermit convulsed Europe by
his cry of " God wills it ! " A single word of the Emperor
electrified his army, and made France invincible. Proudhon
destroyed socialism by his celebrated paradox : " Property
is robbery." A current saying is frequently sufficient to
overturn a reigning power. Voltaire knew this well — who
shook the world by sarcasms. So, also, he who feared
neither pope nor king, neither parliament nor Bastille, was
afraid of a pun. We are on the verge of accomplishing the
intentions of that man whose sayings we repeat.

The third method of establishing the magic chain is by

mtact. Between persons who meet frequently, the head
the current soon manifests, and the strongest will is not

low to absorb the others. The direct and positive grasp of

land by hand completes the harmony of dispositions, and it is
for this reason a mark of sympathy and intimacy. Children,

rho are guided instinctively by nature, form the magic
chain by playing at bars or rounds ; then gaiety spreads,
then laughter rings. Circular tables are more favourable
to convivial feasts than those of any other shape. The
great circular dance of the Sabbath, which concluded the
mysterious assemblies of adepts in the middle ages, was a
magic chain, which joined all in the same intentions and

262 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the same acts. It was formed by standing back to back
and linking hands, the face outside the circle, in imitation
of those antique sacred dances, representations of which are
still found on the sculptures of old temples. The electric
furs of the lynx, panther, and even domestic cat, were
stitched to their garments, in imitation of the ancient
bacchanalia; hence comes the tradition that the Sabbath
miscreants each wore a cat hung from the girdle, and that
they danced in this guise.

The phenomena of tilting and talking tables has been a
fortuitous manifestation of fluidic communication by means
of the circular chain. Mystification combined with it
afterwards, and even educated and intelligent persons were
so infatuated with the novelty that they hoaxed them-
selves, and became the dupes of their own absurdity. The
oracles of the tables were answers more or less voluntarily
suggested or extracted by chance ; they resembled the con-
versations which we hold or hear in dreams. Other and
stranger phenomena may have been the external manifesta-
tions of imaginations operating in common. We, however,
by no means deny the possible intervention of elementary
spirits in these occurrences, as in those of divination by
cards or by dreams ; but we do not believe that it has been
in any sense proven, and we are therefore in no way obliged
to admit it.

One of the most extraordinary powers of human imagina-
tion is the realisation of the desires of the will, or even of
its apprehensions and fears. We believe easily anything
that we fear or desire, says a proverb; and it is true,
because desire and fear impart to imagination a realis-
ing power, the effects of which are incalculable. How is
one attacked, for example, by a disease about which one
feels nervous? We have already cited the opinions of
Paracelsus on this point, and have established in our
doctrinal part the occult laws confirmed by experience;
but in magnetic currents, and by mediation of the chain,
the realisations are all the more strange because almost

THE TRIPLE CHAIN 263

invariably unexpected, at least when the chain has not
been formed by an intelligent, sympathetic, and powerful
leader. In fact, they are the result of purely blind and
fortuitous combinations. The vulgar fear of superstitious
feasters, when they find themselves thirteen at table, and
their conviction that some misfortune threatens the youngest
and weakest among them, is, like most superstitions, a
remnant of magical science. The duodenary being a com-
plete and cyclic number in the universal analogies of
nature, invariably attracts and absorbs the thirteenth, which
is regarded as a sinister and superfluous number. If the
grindstone of a mill be represented by the number twelve,
then thirteen is that of the grain which is to be ground.
On kindred considerations, the ancients established the dis-
tinctions between lucky and unlucky numbers, whence came
the observance of days of good or evil augury. It is in
such concerns, above all, that imagination is creative, so
that both days and numbers seldom fail to be propitious
or otherwise to those who believe in their influence.
Consequently, Christianity was right in proscribing the
divinatory sciences, for in thus diminishing the number
of blind chances, it gave further scope and empire to
liberty.

Printing is an admirable instrument for the formation of
the magic chain by the extension of speech. No book is
lost ; as a fact, writings go invariably precisely where they
should go, and the aspirations of thought attract speech.
We have proved this a hundred times in the course of our
magical initiation ; the rarest books have offered them-
selves without seeking as soon as they became indispensable.
Thus have we recovered intact that universal science which
so many learned persons have regarded as engulfed by a
number of successive cataclysms ; thus have we entered the
great magical chain which began with Hermes or Enoch, and
will only end with the world. Thus have we been able to
evoke, and come face to face with, the spirits of Apollonius,
Plotinus, Synesius, Paracelsus, Cardanus, Agrippa, and others

264 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

less or more known, but too religiously celebrated to make
it possible for them to be named lightly. We continue
their great work, which others will take up after us. But
unto whom will it be given to complete it ?

CHAPTEE XII

THE GREAT WORK

To be ever rich, to be always young, and to die never ; such,
from all time, has been the dream of the alchemists. To
change lead, mercury, and all other metals into gold, to
possess the universal medicine and the elixir of life — such
is the problem which must be solved to accomplish this
desire and to realise this dream. Like all magical mysteries,
the secrets of the great work have a triple meaning ; they
are religious, philosophical, and natural. The philosophical
gold in religion is the absolute and supreme reason ; in philo-
sophy, it is truth ; in visible nature, it is the sun ; in the
subterranean and mineral world, it is the purest and most
perfect gold. Hence the search after the great work is called
the search for the absolute, and this work itself is termed
the operation of the sun. All masters of science recognise
that it is impossible to achieve material results until we
have found all the analogies of the universal medicine and
the philosophical stone in the two superior degrees. Then,
it is affirmed, is the labour simple, light, and inexpensive ;
otherwise, it consumes to no purpose the life and fortune of
the bellows-blower.

The universal medicine is, for the soul, supreme reason
and absolute justice ; for the mind, it is mathematical and
practical truth ; for the body, it is the quintessence, which
is a combination of gold and light. In the superior world,
the first matter of the great work is enthusiasm and activity ;

THE GREAT WORK 265

In the intermediate world, it is intelligence and industry ;
in the inferior world, it is labour ; in science it is sulphur,
mercury, and salt, which, volatilised and fixed alternately,
•compose the Azoth of the sages. Sulphur corresponds to
the elementary form of fire, mercury to air and water, salt to
-earth. All the masters in alchemy who have written con-
cerning the great work have employed symbolical and figura-
tive expressions, and have rightly done so, as much to deter
the profane from a work which would, for them, be danger-
ous, as to make themselves intelligible to adepts, by revealing
the entire world of analogies which is ruled by the one
and sovereign dogma of Hermes. For such, gold and silver
are the sun and moon, or the king and queen ; sulphur is
the flying eagle ; mercury is the winged and bearded
hermaphrodite, throned upon a cube and crowned with
flames ; matter or salt is the winged dragon ; metals in the
molten state are lions of various colours ; finally, the whole
work is symbolised by the pelican and phoenix. Hermetic
-art is, therefore, at one and the same time, a religion, a
philosophy, and a natural science. Considered as religion,
it is that of the ancient magi and the initiates of all the
ages ; as a philosophy, its principles may be found in the
school of Alexandria and in the theories of Pythagoras ; as
science, its principles must be sought from Paracelsus,
ficholas Flamel, and Eaymund Lully. The science is true
mly for those who accept and understand the philosophy
id religion, and its processes are successful only for the
lept who has attained sovereign volition, and has thus
jome the monarch of the elementary world, for the great
of the solar work is that force described in the Her-
letic symbol of the Emerald Table ; it is universal magical
)wer ; it is the igneous spiritual motor ; it is the Od of the
[ebrews, and the astral light, according to the expression
re have adopted in this work. There is the secret, living,
id philosophical fire, of which all Hermetic philosophers
speak only with the most mysterious reservations ; there is
universal sperm, the secret of which they guarded, re-

266 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

presenting it only under the emblem of the caduceus of
Hermes. Here then is the great Hermetic arcanum, and
we reveal it for the first time clearly and devoid of mystical
figures ; what the adepts term dead substances are bodies
as found in nature ; living substances are those which have
been assimilated and magnetised by the science and will of
the operator. Therefore the great work is something more
than a chemical operation ; it is an actual creation of the
human Word initiated into the power of the Word of God
himself.

pa K in

J
nnixm

:rvnwni m

This Hebrew text which we transcribe in proof of the
authenticity and reality of our discovery, is derived from the
rabbinical Jew Abraham, the master of Nicholas Elamel,,
and is found in his occult commentary on the Sepher
Jetzirah, the sacred book of the Kabbalah. This commen-
tary is extremely rare, but the sympathetic potencies of our
chain led us to the discovery of a copy which has been pre-
served since the year 1643 in the Protestant church at
Rouen. On its first page there is written : Ex dono, then
an illegible name : Dei magni.

The creation of gold in the great work takes place by
transmutation and multiplication. Raymund Lully states
that in order to make gold we must have gold and mercury,
while in order to make silver we must have silver and
mercury. Then he adds : " By mercury, I understand that
mineral spirit which is so refined and purified that it gilds.
the seed of gold, and silvers the seed of silver." Doubtless,
he is here speaking of Od, or astral light. Salt and sulphur
are serviceable in the work only for the preparation of
mercury ; it is with mercury above all that the magnetic

THE GREAT WORK 267

agent must be assimilated and incorporated. Paracelsus,
Kaymund Lully, and Nicholas Flamel seem alone to have per-
fectly understood this mystery. Basil Valentine and Trevisan
indicate it after an incomplete manner, which might be
capable of another interpretation. But quite the most
curious things which we have found on this subject are
indicated by the mystical figures and magical legends in a
book of Henry Khunrath, entitled Amphitheatrum Sapientice
jflternce. Khunrath represents and resumes the most
learned Gnostic schools, and connects in symbology with
the mysticism of Synesius. He affects Christianity in
expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that his Christ
is the Abraxas, the luminous pentagram radiating on the
astronomical cross, the incarnation in humanity of the
sovereign sun celebrated by the Emperor Julian ; it is the
luminous and living manifestation of that Ruach-Elohim
which, according to Moses, brooded and worked upon the
bosom of the waters at the birth of the world ; it is the
man-sun, the monarch of light, the supreme magus, the
master and conqueror of the serpent, and in the four-fold
legend of the evangelists, Khunrath finds the allegorical key
of the great work. One of the pantacles of his magical book
represents the philosophical stone erected in the middle of a
fortress surrounded by a wall in which there are twenty
impracticable gates. One alone conducts to the sanctuary
of the great work. Above the stone there is a triangle
placed upon a winged dragon, and on the stone is graven
name of Christ qualified as the symbolical image of all
iture. " It is by him alone," he adds, " that thou canst
)btain the universal medicine for men, animals, vegetables,
id minerals." The winged dragon, ruled by the triangle,
ipresents, therefore, the Christ of Khunrath ; that is, the
>vereign intelligence of light and life ; it is the secret of
pentagram ; it is the highest dogmatic and practical
lystery of traditional magic. Thence unto the grand and
rer incommunicable maxim there is only one step.
The kabbalistic figures of Abraham the Jew, which

268 THE RITUAL OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

imparted to Flamel the first desire for knowledge, are no
other than the twenty-two keys of the Tarot, elsewhere
initiated and resumed in the twelve keys of Basil Valentine.
There the sun and moon reappear under the figures of
emperor and empress ; Mercury is the juggler ; the Great
Hierophant is the adept or abstractor of the quintessence ;
death, judgment, love, the dragon or devil, the hermit or
lame elder, and, finally, all the remaining symbols are there
found with their chief attributes, and almost in the same
order. It could have scarcely been otherwise, since
the Tarot is the primeval book and the keystone of the
occult sciences ; it must be Hermetic, because it is kabbal-
istic, magical, and theosophical. So, also, we find in the
combination of its twelfth and twenty-second keys, super-
posed one upon the other, the hieroglyphic revelation of the
solution of the grand work and its mysteries. The twelfth
key represents a man hanging by one foot from a gibbet
composed of three trees or posts, forming the Hebrew letter
fl ; the man's arms constitute a triangle with his head, and
his entire hieroglyphical shape is that of a reversed triangle
surmounted by a cross, an alchemical symbol known to all
adepts, and representing the accomplishment of the great
work. The twenty-second key, which bears the number
twenty-one, because the fool which precedes it carries no
numeral, represents a youthful female divinity slightly veiled
and running in a flowering circle, supported at four corners
by the four beasts of the Kabbalah. In the Italian Tarot
this divinity has a rod in either hand ; in the Besanson
Tarot, the two wands are in one hand while the other is
placed upon her thigh, both equally remarkable symbols of
magnetic action, either alternate in its polarisation, or
simultaneous by opposition and transmission.

The great work of Hermes is, therefore, an essentially
magical operation, and the highest of all, for it supposes the
absolute in science and volition. There is light in gold,
gold in light, and light in all things. The intelligent will,
which assimilates the light, directs in this manner the

THE GREAT WORK 269

operations of substantial form, and uses chemistry solely as
a secondary instrument. The influence of human will and
intelligence upon the operations of nature, dependent in
part on its labour, is otherwise a fact so real that all serious
alchemists have succeeded in proportion to their knowledge
and their faith, and have reproduced their thought in the
phenomena of the fusion, salification, and recomposition of
metals. Agrippa, who was a man of immense erudition and
fine genius, but pure philosopher and sceptic, could not
transcend the limits of metallic analysis and synthesis.
Etteilla, a confused, obscure, fantastic, but persevering
kabbalist, reproduced in alchemy the eccentricities of his
misconstrued and mutilated Tarot ; metals in his crucibles
assumed extraordinary forms, which excited the curiosity of
all Paris, with no greater profit to the operator than the fees
which were paid by his visitors. An obscure bellows-
blower of our own time, who died mad, poor Louis Cambriel,
really cured his neighbours, and, by the evidence of all his
parish, brought back to life a smith who was his friend.
For him the metallic work took the most inconceivable
and apparently illogical forms. One day he beheld the
figure of God himself in his crucible, incandescent like the
sun, transparent as crystal, his body composed of triangular
conglomerations, which Cambriel naively compared to quan-
tities of tiny pears.

One of our friends, who is a learned kabbalist, but
belongs to an initiation which we regard as erroneous,
performed recently the chemical operations of the great
work, and succeeded in weakening his eyes through the
excessive brilliance of the Athanor. He created a new
metal which resembles gold, but is not gold, and hence has
no value. Eaymund Lully, Nicholas Flamel, and most
probably Henry Khunrath, made true gold, nor did they
take away their secret with them, for it is enclosed in their
symbols, and they have further indicated the sources from
which they drew for its discovery and for the realisation of
its effects. It is this same secret which we now ourselves
make public.

270 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTEE XIII

NECROMANCY

WE have boldly declared our opinion, or rather our convic-
tion, as to the possibility of resurrection in certain cases ;
it remains for us now to complete the revelation of this
arcanum and to expose its practice. Death is a phantom of
ignorance ; it does not exist ; everything in nature is living,
and it is because it is alive that everything is in motion and
undergoes incessant change of form. Old age is the begin-
ning of regeneration, it is the labour of renewing life, and
the ancients represented the mystery we term death by the
Fountain of Youth, which was entered in decrepitude and
left in new childhood. The body is a garment of the soul.
When this garment is completely worn out, or seriously and
irreparably rent, it is abandoned and never reassumed. But
when this garment is removed by some accident without
being worn out or destroyed, it can, in certain cases, be put
on again, either by our own efforts or by the assistance
of a stronger and more active will than ours. Death is
neither the end of life nor the beginning of immortality ;
it is the continuation and transformation of life. Now, a
transformation being always a progress, few of those who
are apparently dead will consent to return to life, that is, to
reassume the vestment which they have left behind. It is
this which makes resurrection one of the hardest works of
the highest initiation, and hence its success is never infallible,
but must be regarded almost invariably as accidental and
unexpected. To raise up a dead person we must suddenly
and energetically rebind the most powerful chains of attrac-
tion which connect it with the body that it has just quitted.
It is, therefore, necessary to be previously acquainted with
this chain, then to seize thereon, finally to produce an effort
of will sufficiently powerful to instantaneously and irresist-
ibly relink it. All this, as we say, is extremely difficult,

NECROMANCY 271

but is in no sense absolutely impossible. The prejudices of
materialistic science exclude resurrection at present from the
natural order, and hence there is a disposition to explain all
phenomena of this class by lethargies more or less compli-
cated with signs of death, and more or less long in duration.
If Lazarus rose again before our doctors, they would simply
record in their memorials to recognised academies a strange
case of lethargy accompanied by an apparent beginning of
putrefaction and a strong corpse-like odour ; the exceptional
occurrence would be labelled with a becoming name, and
the matter would be at an end. We have no wish to
frighten anyone, and if, out of respect for the men with
diplomas who represent science officially, it is requisite to
term our theories concerning resurrection the art of curing
exceptional and aggravated trances, nothing, I hope, will
hinder us from making such a concession. But if ever a re-
surrection has taken place in the world, it is incontestable
that resurrection is possible. Now, constituted bodies protect
religion, and religion positively asserts the fact of resurrec-
tions ; therefore resurrections are possible. From this
escape is difficult. To say that they are possible outside
the laws of nature, and by an influence contrary to universal
harmony, is to affirm that the spirit of disorder, darkness,
and death, can be the sovereign arbiter of life. Let us not
dispute with the worshippers of the devil, but pass on.

It is not religion alone which attests the facts of resur-
rection ; we have collected a number of cases. An occur-
rence which impressed the imagination of Greuze, the
painter, has been reproduced by him in one of his most
remarkable pictures. An unworthy son, present at his
father's deathbed, seizes and destroys a will unfavourable
to himself ; the father rallies, leaps up, curses his son, and
then drops back dead a second time. An analogous and
more recent fact has been certified to ourselves by ocular
witnesses : a friend, betraying the confidence of one who
had just died, tore up a trust-deed he had signed, where-
upon the dead person rose up, and lived to defend the rights

272 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

of his chosen heirs, which his false friend sought to set aside ;
the guilty person went mad, and the risen man compassionately
allowed him a pension. When the Saviour raised up the daugh-
ter of Jairus, He was alone with three faithful and favoured
disciples ; He dismissed the noisy and the loud mourners,
saying, " The girl is not dead but sleeping." Then, in the
presence only of the father, the mother, and the three dis-
ciples, that is to say, in a perfect circle of confidence and
desire, He took the child's hand, drew her abruptly up, and
cried to her, " Young girl, I say to thee, arise ! " The un-
decided soul, doubtless in the immediate vicinity of the body,
and possibly regretting its extreme youth and beauty, was
surprised by the accents of that voice, which was heard by her
father and mother trembling with hope, and on their knees ;
it returned into the body ; the maiden opened her eyes, rose
up, and the Master commanded immediately that food should
be given her, so that the functions of life might begin a new
cycle of absorption and regeneration. The history of
Eliseus, raising up the daughter of the Shunamite, and St
Paul raising Eutychus, are facts of the same order ; the
resurrection of Dorcas by St Peter, narrated so simply in
the Acts of the Apostles, is also a history the truth of which
can scarcely be reasonably questioned. Apollonius of Tyana
seems also to have accomplished similar miracles, and we
ourselves have been the witness of facts which are not
wanting in analogy with these, but the spirit of the century
in which we live imposes in this respect the most careful
reserve upon us, the thaumaturge being liable to a very in-
different reception at the hands of a discerning public — all
which does not hinder the earth from revolving, or Galileo
from having been a great man.

The resurrection of a dead person is the masterpiece of
magnetism, because it needs for its accomplishment the
exercise of a kind of sympathetic omnipotence. It is pos-
sible in the case of death by congestion, by suffocation, by
exhaustion, or by hysteria. Eutychus, who was resuscitated
by St Paul, after falling from a third storey, was doubtless

NECROMANCY 273

not seriously injured internally, but had succumbed to
asphyxia, occasioned by the rush of air during his fall, or
alternatively to the violent shock and to terror. In a parallel
case, he who feels conscious of the power and faith necessary
for such an accomplishment, must, like the apostle, practise
insufflation, mouth to mouth, combined with contact of the
extremities for the restoration of warmth. Were it simply
a matter of what the ignorant call miracle, Elias and St
Paul, who made use of the same procedure, would simply
have spoken in the name of Jehovah or of Christ. It is
occasionally enough to take the person by the hand, and raise
them quickly, calling them in a loud voice. This procedure,
which commonly succeeds in swoons, may even have effect
upon the dead, when the magnetizer who exercises it is en-
dowed with speech powerfully sympathetic and possesses
what may be called eloquence of tone. He must also be
tenderly loved or greatly respected by the person on whom
he would operate, and he must perform the work with a
great burst of faith and will, which we do not always find
ourselves to possess in the first shock of a great sorrow.

What is vulgarly called necromancy has nothing in
common with resurrection, and it is at least highly doubtful
that in operations connected with this application of magical
power, we really come into correspondence with the souls of
the dead whom we evoke. There are two kinds of necro-
mancy, that of light and that of darkness, the evocation by
prayer, pantacle, and perfumes, and the evocation by blood,
imprecations, and sacrileges. We have only practised the
first, and advise no one to devote themselves to the second.
It is certain that the images of the dead do appear to the
magnetized persons who evoke them ; it is certain also that
they never reveal any mysteries of the life beyond. They
are beheld as they still exist in the memories of those who
knew them, and, doubtless, as their reflections have left
them impressed on the astral light. When evoked spectres
reply to questions addressed them, it is always by signs or
by interior and imaginary impression, never with a voice

S

274 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

which really strikes the ears, and this is comprehensible
enough, for how should a shadow speak ? With what
instrument could it cause the air to vibrate by impressing it
in such a manner as to make distinct sounds ? At the same
time, electrical contacts are experienced from apparitions,
and sometimes appear to be produced by the hand of the
phantom, but the phenomenon is wholly subjective, and is
occasioned solely by the power of imagination and the local
wealth of the occult force which we term the astral light.
The proof of this is that spirits, or at least the spectres
pretended to be such, may indeed occasionally touch us, but
we cannot touch them, and this is one of the most affright-
ing characteristics of these apparitions, which are at times
so real in appearance that we cannot unmoved feel the hand
pass through that which seems a body without touching or
meeting anything.

We read in ecclesiastical historians that Spiridion, Bishop
of Tremithonte, afterwards invoked as a saint, called up the
spirit of his daughter, Irene, to ascertain from her the
whereabouts of some concealed money which she had taken
in charge for a traveller. Swedenborg communicated
habitually with the so-called dead, whose forms appeared to
him in the astral light. Several credible persons of our
acquaintance have assured us that they have been revisited
for years by the dead who were dear to them. The cele-
brated atheist Sylvanus Marechal manifested to his widow
and one of her friends, to acquaint her concerning a sum of
1500 francs which he had concealed in a secret drawer.
This anecdote was related to us by an old friend of the
family.

Evocations should have always a motive and a becoming
end ; otherwise, they are works of darkness and folly, most
dangerous for health and reason. To evoke out of pure
curiosity, and to find out whether we shall see anything, is
to be predisposed to fruitless fatigue. The transcendental
sciences admit of neither doubt nor puerility. The per-
missible motive of an evocation may be either love or

NECROMANCY 275

intelligence. Evocations of love require less apparatus
and are in every respect easier. The procedure is as
follows : We must, in the first place, carefully collect the
memorials of him (or her) whom we desire to behold, the
articles he used, and on which his impression remains ; we
must also prepare an apartment in which the person lived, or
otherwise one of similar kind, and place his portrait veiled in
white therein, surrounded with his favourite flowers, which
must be renewed daily. A fixed date must then be
observed, either the birthday of the person, or that day
which was most fortunate for his and our own affection, one
of which we may believe that his soul, however blessed
elsewhere, cannot lose the remembrance ; this must be the
day for the evocation, and we must provide for it during
the space of fourteen days. Throughout this period we
must refrain from extending to any one the same proofs of
affection which we have the right to expect from the dead ;
we must observe strict chastity, live in retreat, and take
only one modest and light collation daily. Every evening
at the same hour we must shut ourselves in the chamber
consecrated to the memory of the lamented person, using
only one small light, such as that of a funeral lamp or
taper. This light should be placed behind us, the portrait
should be uncovered, and we should remain before it for an
hour, in silence ; finally, we should fumigate the apartment
with a little good incense, and go out backwards. On the
morning of the day fixed for the evocation, we should adorn
ourselves as if for a festival, not salute any one first, make
but a single repast of bread, wine, and roots, or fruits ; the
cloth should be white, two covers should be laid, and one
portion of the bread broken should be set aside ; a little
wine should also be placed in the glass of the person we
design to invoke. The meal must be eaten alone in the
chamber of evocations, and in presence of the veiled portrait ;
it must be all cleared away at the end, except the glass
belonging to the dead person, and his portion of bread,
which must be placed before the portrait. In the evening,

276 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

at the hour for the regular visit, we must repair in silence
to the chamber, light a clear fire of cypress-wood, and cast
incense seven times thereon, pronouncing the name of the
person whom we desire to behold. The lamp must then be
extinguished, and the fire permitted to die out. On this
day the portrait must not be unveiled. When the flame is
extinct, put more incense on the ashes, and invoke God
according to the forms of the religion to which the dead
person belonged, and according to the ideas which he him-
self possessed of God. While making this prayer, we must
identify ourselves with the evoked person, speak as he
spoke, believe in a sense as he believed ; then, after a silence
of fifteen minutes, we must speak to him as if he were
present, with affection and with faith, praying him to
manifest to us. Renew this prayer mentally, covering the
face with both hands ; then call him thrice with a loud
voice ; tarry on our knees, the eyes closed or covered, for
some minutes ; then again call thrice upon him in a sweet
and affectionate tone, and slowly open the eyes. Should
nothing result, the same experiment must be renewed in
the following year, and if necessary a third time, when it is
certain that the desired apparition will be obtained, and the
longer it has been delayed the more realistic and striking it
will be.

Evocations of knowledge and intelligence are made with
more solemn ceremonies. If concerned with a celebrated
personage, we must meditate for twenty-one days upon his
life and writings, form an idea of his appearance, converse
with him mentally, and imagine his answers ; carry his
portrait, or at least his name, about us ; follow a vegetable
diet for twenty-one days, and a severe fast during the last
seven. We must next construct the magical oratory, de-
scribed in the thirteenth chapter of our Doctrine. This
oratory must be invariably darkened ; but if we operate
in the daytime, we may leave a narrow aperture on the
side where the sun will shine at the hour of evocation, and
place a triangular prism before this opening, and a crystal

NECROMANCY 277

globe, filled with water, before the prisin. If the operation
be arranged for night, the magic lamp must be so placed
that its single ray shall fall upon the altar smoke. The
purpose of these preparations is to furnish the magic agent
with elements of corporeal appearance, and to ease as much
as possible the tension of imagination, which could not be
exalted without danger into the absolute illusion of dream.
For the rest, it will be easily understood that a beam of
sunlight, or the ray of a lamp, coloured variously, and fall-
ing upon curling and irregular smoke, can in no way create
a perfect image. The chafing-dish containing the sacred
fire should be in the centre of the oratory, and the altar of
perfumes hard by. The operator must turn towards the
east to pray, and the west to invoke ; he must be either
alone or assisted by two persons preserving the strictest
silence; he must wear the magical vestments, which we
have described in the seventh chapter, and must be crowned
with vervain and gold. He should bathe before the opera-
tion, and all his under garments must be of the most intact
and scrupulous cleanliness. The ceremony should begin
with a prayer suited to the genius of the spirit about to be
invoked, and one which would be approved by himself if he
still lived. For example, it would be impossible to evoke
Voltaire by reciting prayers in the style of St Bridget. For
the great men of antiquity, we may use the hymns of
Cleanthes or Orpheus, with the adjuration terminating the
Golden Verses of Pythagoras. In our own evocation of
Apollonius, we used the magical philosophy of Patricius
for the ritual, containing the doctrines of Zoroaster and
the writings of Hermes Trismegistus. We recited the
Nuctemeron of Apollonius in Greek with a loud voice,
and added the following conjuration : —

Vouchsafe to be present, 0 Father of All, and thou
Thrice Mighty Hermes, Conductor of the Dead. Asclepius,
son of Hephaistus, Patron of the Healing Art : and thou
Osiris, Lord of strength and vigour, do thou thyself be
present too. Arnebascenis, Patron of Philosophy, and yet

2*78 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

again Asclepius, son of Imuthe, who presidest over
poetry . . .

Apollonius, Apollonius, Apollonius ! Thou teachest
the Magic of Zoroaster, son of Oromasdes; and this is
the worship of the Gods.

For the evocation of spirits belonging to religions issued
from Judaism, the following kabbalistic invocation of
Solomon should be used, either in Hebrew, or in any
other tongue with which the spirit in question is known
to have been familiar : —

Powers of the Kingdom, be ye under my left foot and in
my right hand ! Glory and Eternity, take me by the two
shoulders, and direct me in the paths of victory ! Mercy
and Justice, be ye the equilibrium and splendour of my
life ! Intelligence and Wisdom, crown me ! Spirits of
MALCHUTH, lead me betwixt the two pillars upon which
rests the whole edifice of the temple ! Angels of NETSAH
and HOD, strengthen me upon the cubic stone of JESOD !
0 GEDULAEL ! 0 GEBURAEL ! 0 TIPHERETH ! BINAEL, be thou
my love ! EUACH HOCHMAEL, be thou my light ! Be that
which thou art and thou shalt be, 0 KETHERIEL ! Ischim,
assist me in the name of SADDAI ! Cherubim, be my strength
in the name of ADONAI ! Beni-Elohim, be my brethren in
the name of the Son, and by the powers of ZEBAOTH !
Elo'im, do battle for me in the name of TETRAGRAMMATON !
Malachim, protect me in the name of JOD HE VAU HE !
Seraphim, cleanse my love in the name of ELVOH ! Hasmalim,
enlighten me with the splendours of ELOI and Shechinah !
Aralim, act ! Ophanim, revolve and shine ! Hajoth a Kadosh,
cry, speak, roar, bellow ! Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, SADDAI,
ADONAI, JOTCHAVAH, EIEAZEREIE ! Hallelu-jah, Hallelu-jah,
Hallelu-jah. Amen. |DX.

It should be remembered above all, in conjurations, that
the names of Satan, Beelzebub, Adramelek, and others do
not designate spiritual unities, but legions of impure spirits.
" Our name is legion, for we are many," says the spirit of

*

NECROMANCY 279

darkness in the Gospel. Number constitutes the law, and pro-
gress takes place inversely in hell — that is to say, the most
advanced in Satanic development, and consequently the most
degraded, are the least intelligent and feeblest. Thus, a fatal
law drives the demons downward when they wish and be-
lieve themselves to be ascending. So also those who term
themselves chiefs are the most impotent and despised of all.
As to the horde of perverse spirits, they tremble before an
unknown, invisible, incomprehensible, capricious, implacable
chief, who never explains his laws, whose arm is ever
stretched out to strike those who fail to understand him.
They give this phantom the names of Baal, Jupiter, and even
others more venerable, which cannot, without profanation,
be pronounced in hell. But this phantom is only the shadow
and remnant of God, disfigured by their wilful perversity,
and persisting in their imagination like a vengeance of
justice and a remorse of truth.

When the evoked spirit of light manifests with dejected
or irritated countenance, we must offer him a moral sacrifice,
that is, be inwardly disposed to renounce whatever offends
him ; and before leaving the oratory, we must dismiss him,
saying : " May peace be with thee ! I have not wished to
trouble thee ; do thou torment me not. I shall labour to
improve myself as to anything that vexes thee. I pray, and
will still pray, with thee and for thee. Pray thou also both
with and for me, and return to thy great slumber, expecting
that day when we shall awake together. Silence and adieu ! "

«We must not close this chapter without giving some de-
ils on black magic for the benefit of the curious. The
practices of Thessalian sorcerers and Roman Canidias are
described by several ancient authors. In the first place,
a pit was dug, at the mouth of which they cut the throat
of a black sheep; the psyllse and larvae presumed to be
present, and swarming round to drink the blood, were
driven off with the magic sword ; the triple Hecate and the
infernal gods were evoked, and the phantom whose apparition
was desired was called upon three times. In the middle

280 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ages, necromancers violated tombs, composed philtres and
unguents with the fat and blood of corpses combined with
aconite, belladonna, and poisonous fungi; they boiled and
skimmed these frightful compounds over fires nourished with
human bones and crucifixes stolen from churches; they
added dust of dried toads and ash of consecrated hosts ;
they anointed their temples, hands, and breasts with the
infernal unguent, traced the diabolical pantacles, evoked the
dead beneath gibbets or in deserted graveyards. Their
bowlings were heard from afar, and belated travellers
imagined that legions of phantoms rose out of the earth ;
the very trees, in their eyes, assumed appalling shapes ; fiery
orbs gleamed in the thickets ; frogs in the marshes seemed
to echo mysterious words of the Sabbath with croaking
voices. It was the magnetism of hallucination, the con-
tagion of madness.

The end of procedure in black magic was to disturb
reason and produce the feverish excitement which emboldens
to great crimes. The grimoires, formerly seized and burnt
by authority everywhere, are certainly not harmless books.
Sacrilege, murder, theft, are indicated or hinted as means to
realisation in almost all these works. Thus, in the Great
Grimoire, and its modern version, the Eed Dragon, there is a
recipe entitled " Composition of Death, or Philosophical
Stone," a broth of aqua fortis, copper, arsenic, and verdigris.
There are also necromantic processes, comprising the tearing
up of earth from graves with the nails, dragging out bones,
placing them crosswise on the breast, then assisting at mid-
night mass on Christmas eve, and flying out of the church
at the moment of consecration, crying : " Let the dead rise
from their tombs ! " — then returning to the graveyard,
taking a handful of earth nearest to the coffin, running back
to the door of the church, which has been alarmed by the
clamour, depositing the two bones crosswise, again shouting:
" Let the dead rise from their tombs," and then, if we escape
being seized and shut up in a mad-house, retiring at a slow
pace, and counting four thousand five hundred steps in a

TRANSMUTATIONS

281

straight line, which means following a broad road or scaling
walls. Having traversed this space, you must lie down
upon the earth, place yourself as if in a coffin, and repeat
in lugubrious tones : " Let the dead rise from their tombs ! "
Finally, call thrice on the person whose apparition you
desire. No doubt any one who is mad enough and wicked
enough to abandon himself to such operations is predisposed
to all chimeras and all phantoms. Hence the recipe of the
Grand Grimoire is most efficacious, but we advise none of
our readers to have recourse to it.

CHAPTER XIV

TRANSMUTATIONS

ST AUGUSTINE speculates, as we have said, whether
Apuleius could have been changed into an ass and then
have resumed his human shape. The same doctor might
have equally concerned himself with the adventure of the

282 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

comrades of Ulysses, transformed into swine by Circe. In
vulgar opinion, transmutations and metamorphoses have
always been the very essence of magic. Now, the crowd,
being the echo of opinion, which is queen of the world, is
never perfectly right nor entirely wrong. Magic really
changes the nature of things, or, rather, modifies their appear-
ances at pleasure, according to the strength of the operator's
will and the fascination of ambitious adepts. Speech creates
its form, and when a person, held infallible, confers a name
upon a given thing, he really transforms that thing into the
substance signified by the name. The masterpiece of speech
and of faith, in this order, is the real transmutation of a
substance without change in its appearances. Had
Apollonius offered a cup of wine to his disciples, and said
to them : " This is my blood, of which ye shall drink hence-
forth to perpetuate my life within you ; " and had his
disciples through centuries believed that they continued the
transformation by repeating the same words ; had they
taken the wine, despite its odour and taste, for the real,
human, and living blood of Apollonius, we should have to
acknowledge this master in theurgy as the most accomplished
of enchanters and most potent of all the magi. It would
remain for us then to adore him.

Now, it is well known that mesmerists impart for their
somnambulists any taste that they choose to plain water,
and if we assume a magus having sufficient command over
the astral fluid to magnetize at the same moment a whole
assembly of persons, otherwise prepared for magnetism by
adequate over-excitement, we shall be in a position to ex-
plain readily, not indeed the Gospel miracle of Cana, but
works of the same class. Are not the fascinations of love,
which result from the universal magic of nature, truly pro-
digious, and do they not actually transform persons and
things ? Love is a dream of enchantments that transfigures
the world ; all becomes music and fragrance, all intoxication
and felicity. The beloved being is beautiful, is good, is
sublime, is infallible, is radiant, beams with health and

TRANSMUTATIONS 283

happiness. When the dream ends we seem to have fallen
from the clouds ; we are inspired with disgust for the
brazen sorceress who took the place of the lovely Melusine,
for the Thersites whom we deemed was Achilles or Nereus.
What is there we cannot cause the person who loves us to
believe ? But also what reason or justice can we instil into
those who no longer love us ? Love begins magician and
ends sorcerer. After creating the illusions of heaven on
earth, it realises those of hell ; its hatred is absurd like its
ardour, because it is passional, that is, subject to influences
which are fatal for it. For this cause it has been proscribed
by sages, who declare it to be the enemy of reason. Are
they to be envied or commiserated for thus condemning,
doubtless without understanding, the most alluring of
ill-doers ? All that can be said is that when they spoke
thus, they either had not yet loved or they loved no
longer.

Things that are external are for us what our word
internal makes them. To believe that we are happy is to
be happy ; what we esteem becomes precious in proportion
to the estimation itself : this is the sense in which we can
say that magic changes the nature of things. The " Meta-
morphoses " of Ovid are true, but they are allegorical, like
the " Golden Ass " of rare Apuleius. The life of beings is a
progressive transformation, and its forms can be determined,
renewed, prolonged further, or destroyed sooner. If the
doctrine of metempsychosis were true, might one not say
that the debauch represented by Circe really and materially
changes men into swine ; for, on this hypothesis, the retri-
bution of vices would be a relapse into animal forms that
correspond to them ? Now, metempsychosis, which has
frequently been misinterpreted, has a perfectly true side ;
animal forms communicate their sympathetic impressions to
the astral body of man, which speedily reacts on his apti-
tudes according to the force of his habits. A man of
intelligent and passive mildness assumes the inert physiog-
nomy and ways of a sheep, but in somnambulism it is a

284 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

sheep that is seen, and not a man with a sheepish counte-
nance, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced
a thousand times. In the kabbalistic book of Daniel the
seer, this mystery is represented by the legend of Nabucho-
donsor changed into a beast, which, after the common fate of
magical allegories, has been mistaken for an actual history.
In this way, we can really transform men into animals and
animals into men ; we can metamorphose plants and alter
their virtue ; we can endow minerals with ideal properties ;
it is all a question of willing. We can equally render our-
selves visible or invisible at will, and this helps us to explain
the mysteries of the ring of G-yges.

In the first place, let us remove from the mind of our
readers all supposition of the absurd ; that is, of an effect
devoid of cause or contradicting its cause. To become
invisible one of three things is necessary — the interposition
of some opaque medium between the light and our body, or
between our body and the eyes of the spectators, or the
fascination of the eyes of the spectators in such a manner
that they cannot make use of their sight. Of these
methods, the third only is magical. Have we not all of us
observed that under the government of a strong preoccu-
pation we look without seeing and hurt ourselves against
objects in front of us ? " So do, that seeing they may not
see," said the great Initiator, and the history of this grand
master tells us that one day, finding himself on the point of
being stoned in the temple, he made himself invisible and
went out. There is no need to repeat here the mystifications
of popular grimoires about the ring of invisibility. Some
ordain that it shall be composed of fixed mercury, enriched by
a small stone which it is indispensable to find in a pewit's
nest, and kept in a box of the same metal. The author of the
" Little Albert " ordains that this ring should be composed of
hairs torn from the head of a raging hyena, which recalls the
history of the bell of Eodilard. The only writers who have
discoursed seriously of the ring of Gyges are Jamblichus,
Porphyry, and Peter of Apono. What they say is evidently

TRANSMUTATIONS 285

allegorical, and the representation which they give, or that
which can be made from their description, proves that they
are really speaking of nothing but the great magical arcanum.
One of the figures depicts the universal movement, harmonic
and equilibrated in imperishable being ; another, which
should be formed from an amalgam of the seven metals,
calls for a description in detail. It has a double collet and
two precious stones — a topaz, constellated with the sign of
the sun, and an emerald with the sign of the moon ; it
should bear on the inner side the occult characters of the
planets, and on the outer their known signs, twice repeated
and in kabbalistic opposition to each other ; that is, five on
the right and five on the left ; the signs of the sun and moon
resuming the four several intelligences of the seven planets.
Now, this configuration is no other than that of a pantacle
signifying all the mysteries of magical doctrine, and here is
the occult significance of the ring : to exercise the omni-
potence, of which ocular fascination is one of the most
difficult demonstrations to give, we must possess all science
and know how to make use of it.

Fascination is fulfilled by magnetism. The magus
inwardly forbids a whole assembly to see him, and it does
not see him. In this manner he passes through guarded
gates, and departs from prison in the face of his petrified
gaolers. At such times a strange numbness is experienced,
and they recall having seen the magus as if in a dream, but
never till after he has gone. The secret of invisibility,
erefore, wholly consists in a power which is capable of
finition — that of distracting or paralysing attention, so
t the light reaches the visual organ without impressing
e eye of the soul. To exercise this power we must possess
will accustomed to sudden and energetic actions, great
ince of mind, and skill no less great in causing diversions
mong the crowd. Let a man, for example, who is being
pursued by his intending murderers, dart into a side street,
return immediately, and advance with perfect calmness
towards his pursuers, or let him mix with them and seem

286 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

to be engaged in the chase, and he will certainly make
himself invisible. A priest who was being hunted in '93,
with the intention of hanging him from a lamp-post, fled
down a side street, assumed a stooping gait, and leaned
against a corner, with an intensely preoccupied expression ;
the crowd of his enemies swept past ; not one saw him, or,
rather, it never struck anyone to recognise him ; it was so
unlikely to be he ! The person who desires to be seen
always makes himself observed, and he who would remain
unnoticed effaces himself and disappears. The true ring of
Gyges is the will; it is also the rod of transformations,
and by its precise and strong formulation it creates the
magical word. The omnipotent terms of enchantments
are those which express this creative power of forms.
The tetragram, which is the supreme word of magic,
signifies : " It is that which it shall be," and if we apply it
to any transformation whatsoever with full intelligence, it
will renew and modify all things, even in the teeth of
evidence and common sense. The hoc est of the Christian
sacrifice is a translation and application of the tetragram ;
hence this simple utterance operates the most complete,
most invisible, most incredible, and most clearly affirmed
of all transformations. A still stronger word than that of
transformation has been judged necessary by councils to
express the marvel, that of transubstantiation.

The Hebrew terms ni.T, &&IK, .Tfw, JON, have been con-
sidered by all kabbalists as the keys of magical transforma-
tion. The Latin words, est, sit, esto, fiat, have the same
force when pronounced with full understanding. M. de
Montalembert seriously relates, in his legend of St Elizabeth
of Hungary, how one day this saintly lady, surprised by her
noble husband, from whom she sought to conceal her good
works, in the act of carrying bread to the poor in her apron,
told him that she was carrying roses, and it proved on
investigation that she had spoken truly; the loaves had
been changed into roses. This story is a most gracious
magical apologue, and signifies that the truly wise man

TRANSMUTATIONS 287

cannot lie, that the word of wisdom determines the form of
things, or even their substance independently of their forms.
Why, for example, should not the noble spouse of St Eliza-
beth, a good and firm Christian like herself, and believing
implicitly in the real presence of the Saviour in true
human body upon an altar where he beheld only a wheaten
host, why should he not believe in the real presence of roses
in his wife's apron under the appearances of bread ? She
exhibited him loaves undoubtedly, but as she had said that
they were roses, and as he believed her incapable of the
smallest falsehood, he saw and wished to see roses only.
This is the secret of the miracle. Another legend narrates
how a saint, whose name has escaped me, finding nothing to
eat on a Lenten day or a Friday, commanded the fowl to
become a fish, and it became a fish. The parable needs
no interpretation, and it recalls a beautiful story of St
Spiridion of Tremithonte, the same who evoked the soul of
his daughter Irene. One Good Friday a traveller reached
the abode of the holy bishop, and as bishops in those days
took Christianity in earnest, and were consequently poor,
Spiridion, who fasted religiously, had in his house only some
salted bacon, which had been made ready for Easter. The
stranger was overcome with fatigue and famished with
hunger ; Spiridion offered him the meat, and himself shared
the meal of charity, thus transforming the very flesh which
the Jews regard as of all most impure into a feast of peni-
tence, transcending the material law by the spirit of the law
itself, and proving himself a true and intelligent disciple of
the man-God, who hath established his elect as the monarchs
of nature in the three worlds.

288 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTEK XV

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS

WE return once more to that terrible number fifteen, sym-
bolised in the Tarot by a monster throned upon an altar,
mitred and horned, having a woman's breasts and the
generative organs of a man — a chimera, a malformed
sphinx, a synthesis of monstrosities ; below this figure we
read a frank and simple inscription — THE DEVIL. Yes, we
confront here the phantom of all terrors, the dragon of
all theogonies, the Ariman of the Persians, the Typhon of
the Egyptians, the Python of the Greeks, the old serpent
of the Hebrews, the fantastic monster, the nightmare,
the Croquemitaine, the gargoyle, the great beast of the
middle ages, and, worse than all this, the Baphomet of the
Templars, the bearded idol of the alchemists, the obscene
deity of Mendes, the goat of the Sabbath. The frontispiece
to this Eitual reproduces the exact figure of the terrible
emperor of night, with all his attributes and all his
characters.

Let us state now for the edification of the vulgar, for the
satisfaction of M. le Comte de Mirville, for the justification
of the demonologist Bodin, for the greater glory of the
Church, which persecuted Templars, burnt magicians, ex-
communicated Freemasons, &c. — let us state boldly and
precisely that all the inferior initiates of the occult sciences
and profaners of the great arcanum, not only did in the past,
but do now, and will ever, adore what is signified by this
alarming symbol. Yes, in our profound conviction, the
Grand Masters of the Order of the Templars worshipped
the Baphomet, and caused it to be worshipped by their
adepts ; yes, there existed in the past, and there may be
still in the present, assemblies which are presided over by
this figure, seated on a throne and having a flaming torch
between the horns ; but the adorers of this sign do not

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 289

consider, as do we, that it is the representation of the devil ;
on the contrary, for them it is that of the god Pan, the god
of our modern schools of philosophy, the god of the Alex-
andrian theurgic school, and of our own mystical Neo-
platonists, the god of Lamartine and Victor Cousin, the god
of Spinoza and Plato, the god of the primitive Gnostic
schools ; the Christ also of the dissident priesthood ; this
last qualification, ascribed to the goat of black magic, will
not astonish students of religious antiquities who are
acquainted with the phases of symbolism and doctrine in
their various transformations, whether in India, Egypt, or
Judea.

The bull, the dog, and the goat are the three symbolical
animals of Hermetic magic, resuming all the traditions of
Egypt and India. The bull represents the earth or salt of
the philosophers ; the dog is Hermanubis, the Mercury of
the sages, fluid, air, and water ; the goat represents fire, and
is at the same time the symbol of generation. Two goats,
one pure and one impure, were consecrated in Judea ; the
first was sacrificed in expiation for sins ; the other, loaded
with those sins by imprecation, was set at liberty in the
desert — a strange ordinance, but one of deep symbolism,
reconciliation by sacrifice and expiation by liberty ! Now,
all the fathers of the Church, who have concerned themselves
with Jewish symbolism, have recognised in the immolated
goat the figure of him who assumed, as they say, the very
form of sin. Hence the Gnostics were not outside sym-
bolical traditions when they gave Christ the Liberator this
same mystical figure. All the Kabbalah and all magic,
as a fact, are divided between the cultus of the immolated
and that of the emissary goat. There is, therefore, the
magic of the sanctuary and that of the wilderness, the white
and the black Church, the priesthood of public assemblies
and the sanhedrim of the Sabbath. The goat which is
represented in our frontispiece bears upon his forehead the
sign of the pentagram with one point in the ascendant,
which is sufficient to distinguish him as a symbol of the

T

290 THE KITUAL OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

light ; he makes the sign of occultism with both hands,
pointing upward to the white moon of Chesed, and down-
ward to the black moon of Geburah. This sign expresses
the perfect harmony of mercy with justice. One of the
arms is feminine and the other masculine, as in the
androgyne of Khunrath, whose attributes we have combined
with those of our goat, since they are one and the same
symbol. The torch of intelligence burning between the
horns is the magical light of universal equilibrium; it is
also the type of the soul exalted above matter, even while
connecting with matter, as the flame connects with the
torch. The hideous head of the animal expresses horror of
sin, for which the material agent, alone responsible, must
alone and for ever bear the penalty, because the soul is
impassible in its nature, and can suffer only by materialising.
The caduceus, which replaces the generative organ, repre-
sents eternal life ; the scale-covered belly typifies water ; the
circle above it is the atmosphere ; the feathers still higher
up signify the volatile ; lastly, humanity is depicted by the
two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the
occult sciences. Behold the shadows of the infernal sanc-
tuary dissipated ! Behold the sphinx of mediaeval terrors
divined and cast from his throne ! Quomodo cecidisti>
Lucifer !

The dread Baphomet henceforth, like all monstrous idols,
enigmas of antique science and its dreams, is only an
innocent and even pious hieroglyph. How should man
adore the beast, since he exercises a sovereign power over
it ? Let us affirm, for the honour of humanity, that it has
never adored dogs and goats any more than lambs and pigeons.
In the hieroglyphic order, why not a goat as much as a
lamb ? On the sacred stones of Gnostic Christians of the
Basilidean sect, are representations of Christ under the
diverse figures of kabbalistic animals — sometimes a bird,
at others a lion, and, again, a lion or bull-headed serpent ;
but in all cases He bears invariably the same attributes of
light, even as our goat, who cannot be confounded with

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 291

fabulous images of Satan, owing to his sign of the
pentagram.

Let us assert most strongly, to combat the remnants of
Manichseanism which are daily appearing among Christians,
that as a superior personality and power Satan does not
exist. He is the personification of all errors, perversities,
and, consequently, weaknesses. If God may be defined as
He who necessarily exists, may we not define His antagonist
and enemy as he who necessarily does not exist ? The ab-
solute affirmation of good implies the absolute negation of
evil ; so also in the light shadow itself is Inminous. Thus,
erring spirits are good to the extent of their participation in
being and in truth. There are no shadows without reflec-
tions, no nights without moon, phosphorescence, and stars.
If hell be just, it is good. No one has ever blasphemed
God. The insults and mockeries addressed to His disfigured
images attain Him not.

We have named Manichaeanism, and it is by this mons-
trous heresy that we shall explain the aberrations of black
magic. The misconstrued doctrine of Zoroaster and the
magical law of two forces constituting universal equilibrium,
have caused some illogical minds to imagine a negative
divinity, subordinate but hostile to the active divinity.
Thus, the impure duad comes into being. Men were mad
enough to halve God ; the star of Solomon was separated
into two triangles, and the Manichaeans imagined a trinity
of night. This evil God, product of sectarian fancies, in-
spired all manias and all crimes. Sanguinary sacrifices
were offered him ; monstrous idolatry replaced the true
religion; black magic traduced the transcendent and luminous
magic of true adepts, and horrible conventicles of sorcerers,
ghouls, and stryges took place in caverns and desert places, for
dementia soon changes into frenzy, and from human sacrifices
to cannibalism there is only one step. The mysteries of
the Sabbath have been variously described, but they figure
always in grimoires and in magical trials ; the revelations
made on the subject may be classified under three heads —

292 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

1. those referring to a fantastic and imaginary Sabbath ; 2.
those which betray the secrets of the occult assemblies of
veritable adepts ; 3. revelations of foolish and criminal
gatherings, having for their object the operations of black
magic. For a large number of unhappy men and women,
given over to these mad and abominable practices, the Sab-
bath was but a prolonged nightmare, where dreams appeared
realities, and were induced by means of potions, fumigations,
and narcotic frictions. Baptista Porta, whom we have al-
ready signalised as a mystifier, gives in his "Natural Magic,"
a pretended recipe for the sorcerer's unguent, by means
of which they were transported to the Sabbath. It is
a composition of child's fat, of aconite boiled with poplar
leaves, and some other drugs, the whole mixed with soot,
which could not contribute to the beauty of the naked sor-
ceresses who repaired to the scene anointed with this
pomade. There is another and more serious recipe given
by Baptista Porta, which we transcribe in Latin to preserve
its grimoire character. Recipe : suim, acorum vulgar e, pen-
taphyllon, verspertillionis sanguinem solanum somniferum et
oleum, the whole boiled and incorporated to the consistence
of an unguent. We infer that compositions containing
opiates, the pith of green hemp, datura-stramonium or
laurel-almond, would enter quite as successfully into such
preparations. The fat or blood of night-birds added to
these narcotics, with black magical ceremonies, would im-
press imagination and determine the direction of dreams.
To Sabbaths dreamed in this manner we must refer the
accounts of a goat issuing from pitchers and going back into
them after the ceremony ; infernal powders obtained from
the ordure of this goat, who is called Master Leonard;
banquets where abortions are eaten without salt and boiled
with serpents and toads ; dances, in which monstrous animals
or men and women with impossible shapes, take part ; un-
bridled debauches where incubi project cold sperm. Nightmare
alone could produce or explain such scenes. The unfortunate
cure, Gaufridy, and his abandoned penitent, Madeline de la

I

r(

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 293

Palud, went mad through kindred delusions, and were
burned for persisting in affirming them. We must read
the depositions of these diseased beings during their trial to
understand the extent of the aberration possible to an
afflicted imagination. But the Sabbath was not always a
dream ; it did exist in reality ; even now there are secret
nocturnal assemblies for the practice of the rites of the old
world, some of which assemblies have a religious and social
object, while that of others is concerned with orgies and
conjurations. From this two-fold point of view we propose
to consider and condemn the true Sabbath, of the magic of
light in one case and the magic of darkness in the other.

When Christianity proscribed the public exercise of the
ancient worships, the partisans of the latter were compelled
to meet in secret for the celebration of their mysteries.
Initiates presided over these assemblies, and soon established
among the varieties of the worships a kind of orthodoxy,
more easily facilitated by the aid of magical truth, because
proscription unites wills and gathers up the bonds of brother-
hood between men. Thus, the mysteries of Isis, of Ceres
Eleusinia, of Bacchus, combined with those of the good
goddess and primeval Druidism. The meetings took place
usually between the days of Mercury and Jupiter, or between
those of Venus and Saturn ; the proceedings included the
rites of initiation, exchange of mysterious signs, singing of
symbolical hymns, the cementing of union at the banquet-
ing board, the successive formation of the magical chain
t table and in the dance ; and, finally, the meeting broke
p after renewing pledges in the presence of the chiefs and
receiving instructions from them. The candidate for the
Sabbath was led, or rather carried, to the assembly, with his
eyes covered by the magical mantle in which he was com-
pletely enveloped, he was led between immense fires, while
alarming noises were made about him. When his face was
bared, he found himself surrounded by infernal monsters,
and in the presence of a colossal and hideous goat which
he was commanded to adore. All these ceremonies

294 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

were tests of his force of character and confidence in his
initiators. The final ordeal was most decisive of all because
it was at first sight humiliating and ridiculous to the mind
of the candidate ; he was commanded without circumspection
to kiss respectfully the posterior of the goat ; if he refused,
his head was again covered, and he was transported to a
distance from the assembly with such extraordinary rapidity
that he believed himself whirled through the air; if he
assented, he was taken round the symbolical idol, and there
found, not a repulsive and obscene object, but the young
and gracious countenance of a priestess of Isis or Maia, who
gave him a maternal salute, and he was then admitted
to the banquet. As to the orgies which in many such
assemblies followed the banquet, we must beware of
believing that they were generally permitted at these secret
agapae; at the same time it is known that a number of
gnostic sects practised them in their conventicles during the
early centuries of Christianity, That the flesh had its
protestants in those ages of asceticism and compression of
the senses was inevitable, and can occasion no surprise, but
we must not accuse transcendent magic of the irregularities
it has never authorised. Isis is chaste in her widowhood ;
Diana Panthea is a virgin; Hermanubis, possessing both
sexes, can satisfy neither ; the Hermetic hermaphrodite is
pure ; Apollonius of Tyana never yielded to the seductions
of pleasure; the Emperor Julian was a man of rigid
continence ; Plotinus of Alexandria was ascetic in the
manner of his life ; Paracelsus was such a stranger to
foolish love that his sex was suspected; Raymund Lully
was initiated in the final secrets of science only after a
hopeless passion which made him chaste for ever. It is
also a magical tradition that pantacles and talismans lose
all their virtue when he who wears them enters a house of
prostitution or commits an adultery. The Sabbath of orgies
must not therefore be considered as that of the veritable
adepts.

With regard to the term Sabbath, some have traced it to

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 295

the name of Sabasius, and other etymologies have been
imagined. The most simple, in our opinion, connects it
with the Jewish Sabbath, for it is certain that the Jews, the
most faithful depositaries of the secrets of the Kabbalah,
were almost invariably the great masters in magic during
the middle ages. The Sabbath was therefore the Sunday of
the Kabbalists, the day of their religious festivals, or rather
the night of their regular assembly. This feast, surrounded
with mysteries, had the vulgar timidity for its safeguard and
escaped persecution by terror. As to the diabolical Sabbath
of necromancers, it was a counterfeit of that of the magi,
an assembly of malefactors who exploited idiots and fools.
There horrible rites were practised and abominable potions
compounded, there sorcerers and sorceresses laid their plans
and instructed one another for the common support of their
reputation in prophecy and divination ; at that period
diviners were generally consulted and followed a lucrative
profession while exercising a real power. Such institutions
neither had nor could possess any regular rites ; everything
depended on the caprice of the chiefs and the vertigo of the
assembly. What was narrated by some who had been
present at them served as a type for all nightmares of
hallucination and from this chaos of impossible realities and
demoniac dreams have issued the revolting and foolish
histories of the Sabbath which figure in magical processes
and in the books of such writers as Spranger, Delancere,
Delrio, and Bodin.

The rites of the Gnostic Sabbath were imported into
Germany by an association which took the name of Mopses.
It replaced the Kabbalistic goat by the Hermetic dog, and
he candidate, male or female, for the order initiated
romen, was brought in with eyes bandaged ; the same
ifernal noise was made in their neighbourhood, which
rrounded the name of Sabbath with so many inexplicable
rumours ; they were asked whether they were afraid of the
levil, and were abruptly required to choose between kissing
le posterior of the grand master and that of a small silk-

296 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

covered figure of a dog, which was substituted for the old
grand idol of the goat of Mendes. The sign of recognition
was a ridiculous grimace, which recalls the phantasmagoria
of the ancient Sabbath and the masks of the assistants.
For the rest, their doctrine is summed up in the cultus of
love and license. The association came into existence when
the Eoman Church was persecuting Freemasonry. The
Mopses pretended to recruit only among Catholics, and for
the oath at reception they substituted a solemn engagement
upon honour to reveal no secrets of the order. It was
more effectual than any oath, and left nothing for religion
to object.

The name of the Templar Baphomet, which should be
spelt Kabbalistically backwards, is composed of three abbre-
viations : TEM. OHP. AB., Templi omnium hominum pacis
abbas, " the father of the temple of universal peace among
men." According to some, the Bahomet was a monstrous
head ; according to others, a demon in the form of a goat.
A sculptured coffer was disinterred recently in the ruins of
an old commandery of the temple, and antiquaries observed
upon it a baphometic figure, corresponding by its attributes,
to the goat of Mendes and the androgyne of Khunrath. It
was a bearded figure with a female body, holding the sun in
one hand and the moon in the other, attached to chains.
Now, this virile head is a beautiful allegory which attributes
to thought alone the initiating and creating principle. Here
the head represents spirit and the body matter. The orbs
enchained to the human form, and directed by that nature
of which intelligence is the head, are also magnificently
allegorical. The sign all the same was discovered to be-
obscene and diabolical by the learned men who examined
it. Can we be surprised after this at the spread of mediaeval
superstition in our own day ! One thing only surprises me,
that, believing in the devil and his agents, men do not
rekindle the faggots. M. Veuillot is logical and demands
it ; one should honour men who have the courage of their
opinions.

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 297

Pursuing our curious researches, we come now to the
most horrible mysteries of the grimoire, those which are
concerned with the evocations of devils and pacts with hell.
After attributing a real existence to the absolute negation
of goodness, after having enthroned the absurd and created
a god of falsehood, it remained for human folly to invoke
the impossible idol, and this maniacs have done. We were
lately informed that the most reverend Father Ventura,
formerly Superior of the Theatines, Bishops' Examiner, etc.,
after reading our Doctrine, declared that the kabbalah was,
in his opinion, an invention of the devil, and that the star
of Solomon was another diabolical device to persuade the
world that Satan was the same as God. See what is taught
seriously by the masters in Israel ! The ideal of nothing-
ness and night inventing a sublime philosophy which is the
universal basis of faith and the keystone of all temples !
The demon placing his signature by the side of God's ! My
venerable masters in theology, you are greater sorcerers than
you or others are aware, and He who said : " The devil is a
liar like his father," would have had some observations to
make on the decisions of your reverences.

The evokers of the devil must before all things belong to
a religion which admits a devil, creator and rival of God.
To invoke a power, we must believe in it. Given this firm
faith in the religion of the devil, we must proceed as follows
to enter into correspondence with this pseudo-Deity:

MAGICAL AXIOM.

In the circle of its action, every word creates that which
it affirms.

DIRECT CONSEQUENCE.
He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil.

Conditions of Siwcess in Infernal Evocations.

1, Invincible obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened
to crime and most subject to remorse and fear ; 3, affected

298 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

or natural ignorance ; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible ;
5, a completely false idea of God.

We must afterwards — (a) Profane the ceremonies of the
cultus in which we believe ; (6) offer a bloody sacrifice ;
(c) procure the magic fork, which is a branch of a single
beam of hazel or almond, cut at one blow with the
new knife used for the sacrifice. It must terminate
in a fork, which must be armoured with iron or
steel made from the blade of the before-mentioned
knife. A fast of fifteen days must be observed, tak-
ing a single unsalted repast after sundown ; this repast
should consist of black bread and blood seasoned with
unsalted spices or black beans and milky and narcotic
herbs. We must get drunk every five days, after sundown,
on wine in which five heads of black poppies and five ounces
of pounded hemp seed have been steeped for five hours, the
infusion being strained through a cloth woven by a pro-
stitute ; strictly speaking, the first cloth which comes to
hand may be used, should it have been woven by a woman.
The evocation should be performed on the night between
Monday and Tuesday, or that between Friday and Saturday.
A solitary and condemned spot must be chosen, such as a
cemetery haunted by evil spirits, an avoided ruin in the
country, the vaults of an abandoned convent, a place where
some murder has been committed, a druidic altar or an old
temple of idols. A black seamless and sleeveless robe must
be provided ; a leaden cap emblazoned with the signs of the
moon, Venus, and Saturn ; two candles of human fat set in
black wooden candlesticks, carved in the shape of a crescent ;
two crowns of vervain; a magical sword with a black
handle; the magical fork; a copper vase containing the
blood of the victim ; a censer holding the perfumes, namely,
incense, camphor, aloes, ambergris, and storax, kneaded with
the blood of a goat, a mole, and a bat ; four nails taken
from the coffin of an executed criminal ; the head of
a black cat which has been nourished on human flesh for
five days ; a bat drowned in blood ; the horns of a goat

GOETIC CIRCLE
of Black Evocations and Pacts.

299

300 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

cum quo puella conciibuerit ; and the skull of a parricide.
All these hideous and scarcely obtainable objects having
been collected, they must be arranged as follows : A
perfect circle is traced by the sword, with a break, or
way of issuing, on one side; a triangle is drawn in the
circle, and the pantacle thus formed is coloured with
blood ; at one of the angles of the triangle a chafing-dish
is placed, and this should have been included among the
indispensable objects already enumerated; at the opposite
base of the triangle three little circles are described for the
operator and his two assistants ; behind that of the operator
the sign of the labarum or monogram of Constantine is
drawn, not with the blood of the victim, but with the
operator's own blood. The operator and his assistants must
have bare feet and covered heads. The skin of the immo-
lated victim must be also brought to the place, and, being
cut into strips, must be placed within the circle, forming a
second and inner circle, fixed at four corners by the four
nails from the coffin already mentioned. Hard by the nails,
but outside the circle, must be placed the head of the cat,
the human or rather inhuman skull, the horns of the goat,
and the bat ; they must be sprinkled with a branch of birch
dipped in the blood of the victim, and then a fire of cypress
and alderwood must be lighted, the two magical candles
being placed on the right and left of the operator, encircled
with the wreaths of vervain. The formula of evocation can
now be pronounced, as they are found in the magical elements
of Peter of Apono, or in the grimoires, whether printed or
manuscript. That of the Grand Grimoire, reproduced in
the vulgar Eed Dragon, has been wilfully altered, and should
be read as follows : " By Adonai Elo'im, Adonai Jehova,
Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Adonai Mathon, the
pythonic word, the mystery of the salamander, the assembly
of the sylphs, the grotto of the gnomes, the demons of
the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gioor, Jehosua, Evam,
Zariatnatmik, Come, Come, Come ! "

The grand appellation of Agrippa consists only in these

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS

301

words: DIES MIES JESCHET BOENEDOESEF DOUVEMA ENI-
TEMAUS. We make no pretence of understanding their
meaning ; possibly they possess none, assuredly none which
is reasonable, since they avail in evoking the devil, who is
the sovereign unreason. Picus de Mirandola, no doubt from
the same motive, affirms that in black magic the most
barbarous and unintelligible words are the most efficacious
and the best. The conjurations are repeated in a louder
voice, accompanied by imprecations and menaces, until the
spirit replies. He is commonly preceded by a violent wind
which seems to make the whole country resound. Then
domestic animals tremble and hide away, the assistants feel
a breath upon their faces, and their hair, damp with cold
sweat, rises upon their heads. The grand and supreme
appellation, according to Peter of Apono, is as follows : —

" Hemen-Etan ! Hemen-Etan ! Hemen-Etan ! EL* ATI*
TITEIP* AOZIA* HYN* TEU* MINOSEL* ACHADON* vay* vaa*
Eye* Aaa* Eie* Exe* A EL EL EL A HY ! HAU ! HAU !
HAU! HAU! VA! VA! VA! VA! CHAYAJOTH. Aie
Saraye, aie Saraye, aie Saraye ! By Eloym, Archima, Rabur,
BATHAS over ABRAC, flowing down, coming from above
ABEOR UPON ABERER Chavajoth ! Chavajoth ! Chavajoth ! I
command thee by the Key of SOLOMON and the great name
SEMHAMPHORAS."

The ordinary signs and signatures of demons are given
below : —

302

THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

But they are those of the inferior demons, and here follow
the official signatures of the princes of hell, attested judicially
— judicially, 0 M. le Comte de Mirville I — and preserved in
the archives of justice as convicting evidences for the trial of
the unfortunate Urbain Grandier.

These signatures appear under a pact of which Collin de
Plancy gives a facsimile reproduction in the Atlas of his
" Infernal Dictionary." It has this marginal note : " The
draught is in hell, in the secretary of Lucifer," a valuable
item of information about a locality but imperfectly known,
and belonging to a period approximate to our own, though
anterior to the trial of the young Labarre and Etalonde, who,
as every one knows, were contemporaries of Voltaire.

Evocations were frequently followed by pacts written on
parchment of goat skin with an iron pen and blood drawn
from the left arm. The document was in duplicate ; one
copy was carried off by the fiend and the other swallowed
by the wilful reprobate. The reciprocal engagements were
that the demon should serve the sorcerer during a given
period of years, and that the sorcerer should belong to the

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 303

demon after a determinate time. The Church in her exor-
cisms has consecrated the belief in all these things, and it
may be said that black magic and its darksome prince are
the true, living, and terrible creation of Roman Catholicism ;
that they are even its special and characteristic work, for
priests invent not God. So do true Catholics cleave from
the bottom of their hearts to the consecration and even the
regeneration of this great work, which is the philosophical
stone of the official and positive cultus. In thieves' slang
the devil is called the laker by malefactors ; all our desire,
and we speak no longer from the standpoint of the magus,
but as a devoted child of Christianity and of that Church to
which we owe our earliest education and our first en-
thusiasms— all our desire, we say, is that the phantom of
Satan may no longer be able to be termed the laker for the
ministers of morality and the representatives of the highest
virtue. Will they appreciate our intention and forgive the
boldness of our aspirations in consideration of our devoted
intentions and the sincerity of our faith ?

The devil-making magic which dictated the Grimoire of
Pope Honorius, the Enchiridion of Leo III., the exorcisms
of the Ritual, the verdicts of inquisitors, the suits of Lau-
bardement, the articles of the Veuillot brothers, the books of
MM. de Falloux, de Montalembert, de Mirville, the magic of
sorcerers and of pious persons who are not sorcerers, is
something truly to be condemned in the one and infinitely
deplored in the other. It is above all to combat these un-
happy aberrations of the human mind by their exposure that
we have published this book. May it further the holy cause !

But we have not yet exhibited these impious devices in
all their turpitude, and in all their monstrous folly ; we
must remove the blood-stained filth of perished super-
stitions ; we must tax the annals of demonomania, so as to
conceive of certain crimes which imagination alone could
not invent. The Kabbalist Bodin, Israelite by conviction
and Catholic by necessity, had no other intention in his
" Demonomania of Sorcerers >f than to impeach Catholicism

304 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

in its works, and to undermine it in the greatest of all its
doctrinal abuses. The treatise of Bodin is profoundly
machiavellic, and strikes at the heart of the institutions
and persons it appears to defend. It would be difficult
to imagine without reading his vast mass of sanguinary
and hideous histories, acts of revolting superstition, sentences
and executions of stupid ferocity. " Burn all ! " the in-
quisitors seemed to cry. " God will distinguish His own ! "
Poor fools, hysterical women, and idiots, were accordingly
burned without mercy for the crime of magic, while, at the
same time, great criminals escaped this unjust and san-
guinary justice. Bodin gives us to understand this by
recounting such anecdotes as that which he connects with
the death of Charles IX. It is an almost unknown abomi-
nation, and one which has not, so far as we know, tempted
the skill of any romancer, even at the periods of the most
feverish and deplorable literature.

Attacked by a disease of which no physician could dis-
cover the cause or explain the frightful symptoms, King
Charles IX. was dying. The Queen-Mother, who ruled him
entirely, and had everything to lose under another reign —
the Queen-Mother, who has been suspected as the author of
the disease, because concealed devices and unknown interests
have always been attributed to her who was capable of any-
thing— consulted her astrologers, and then had recourse to
the foulest form of magic, the Oracle of the Bleeding Head,
for the sufferer's condition grew worse and more desperate
daily. The infernal operation was performed in the following
way. A child was selected, of beautiful appearance and
innocent manners ; he was prepared for his first communion
by the almoner of the palace. When the day or rather
night of the sacrifice arrived, a monk, an apostate Jacobin,
given over to the occult works of black magic, celebrated
the Mass of the Devil at midnight, in the sick-room, and in
the presence only of Catherine de Medicis and her trusted
confidants. It was offered before the image of the demon,
having a crucifix upside down under its feet, and the

THE SABBATH OF THE SORCERERS 305

sorcerer consecrated two hosts, one black and one white.
The white was given to the child, who was brought in
clothed as for baptism, and was murdered on the steps of
the altar immediately after his communion. His head, cut
by one blow from the body, was set palpitating upon the
great black host which covered the bottom of the paten, and
then transported to a table where mysterious lamps were
burning. The exorcism began, an oracle was besought
of the demon, and an answer by the mouth of the head
to a secret question which the king dared not make aloud,
and had confided to no one. A strange and feeble voice,
which had nothing human about it, was presently heard
in the poor little martyr's head, saying in Latin : Vim
patior ; " I am forced." At this reply, which doubtless
announced to the sick man that hell no longer protected
him, a horrible trembling seized the monarch, his arms
stiffened, and he cried in a hoarse voice : " Away with that
head ! Away with that head ! " and so continued screaming
till he gave up the ghost. His attendants, who were not in
the confidence of the frightful mystery, believed that he was
pursued by the phantom of Coligny, and that he saw the
head of the illustrious admiral ; what tormented the dying
man was not, however, a remorse, but a hopeless terror and
an anticipated Hell.

This darksome magical legend of Bodin recalls the
abominable practices and deserved fate of Gilles de Laval,
lord of Eetz, who passed from asceticism to black magic,
and offered the most revolting sacrifices to conciliate the
favour of Satan. This madman confessed at his trial
that Satan had frequently appeared to him, but had always
deceived him by promises of treasures which he had never
given. It transpired from the judicial informations that
several hundred unfortunate children had fallen victims to
the cupidity and atrocious fancies of this monster.

306 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER XVI

WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS

WHAT sorcerers and necromancers sought above all in their
evocations of the impure spirit was that magnetic power
which is the possession of the true adept, but was desired
by them only that they might shamefully abuse it. The
folly of sorcerers was an evil folly, and one of their chief
ends was the power of bewitchments or harmful influences.
We have set down in our Doctrine what we think upon the
subject of bewitchment, and how it seems to us a dangerous
and real power. The true magus bewitches without cere-
monial, and by his mere reprobation, those whom he
condemns and considers it necessary to punish ; his forgive-
ness even bewitches those who do him wrong, and never do
the enemies of initiates carry far the impunity of their
injustice. We have ourselves witnessed numerous examples
of this fatal law. The murderers of martyrs always perish
miserably, and the adepts are martyrs of intelligence ; Pro-
vidence seems to scorn those who despise them, and to slay
those who would deprive them of life. The legend of the
Wandering Jew is the popular poetry of this arcanum. A
wise man was driven by a nation to his doom ; it bade him
" Go on ! " when he wished to rest for a moment. What is
the consequence ? A similar condemnation overtakes the
nation itself; it is proscribed bodily; men have cried to it:
" Get on ! Get on ! " for centuries, and it has found no pity
and no repose.

A man of learning had a wife whom he loved wildly and
passionately in the exaltation of his tenderness ; he honoured
her with blind confidence, and trusted her entirely. Vain
of her beauty and understanding, this woman became jealous
of her husband's superiority, and began to hate him. Some
time after she deserted him, disgracing herself with an old,
ugly, stupid, and immoral man. This was the beginning of

WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS 307

her punishment, but it did not end there. The man of
learning solemnly pronounced the following sentence upon
her: "I take back your understanding and your beauty."
A year after she was no longer recognised by those who
had known her ; she had lost her plumpness, and reflected
in her countenance the hideousness of her new affections.
Three years later she was ugly; seven years later she was
deranged. This happened in our own time, and we were
acquainted with both persons.

The magus condemns, after the manner of the skilful
physician, and for this reason there is no appeal from his
sentence when it has once been pronounced against a guilty
person. There are no ceremonies and no invocations ; he
simply abstains from eating at the same table, or if forced
to do so, he neither accepts nor offers salt. But the be-
witchments of sorcerers are of another kind, and may be
compared to an actual poisoning of some current of astral
light. They exalt their will by ceremonies till it becomes
venomous at a distance ; but, as we have observed in our
Doctrine, they more often expose themselves, to be the first
that are killed by their infernal machinery. Let us here
stigmatise some of their guilty proceedings. They procure
the hair or garments of the person whom they seek to exe-
crate ; they next select some animal, which seems to them
symbolic of the person, and, by means of the hair or gar-
ments, they place it in magnetic connection with him or
her. They give it the same name, and then slay it with
one blow of the magic knife. They cut open the breast, tear
out the heart, wrap it, while still palpitating, in the mag-
netised objects, and hourly, for the space of three days,
they drive nails, red hot pins, or long thorns therein, pro-
nouncing maledictions upon the name of the bewitched
person. They are persuaded, and often rightly, that the
victim of their infamous operations experiences as many
tortures as if his own heart had been pierced at all points.
He begins to waste away, and after a time dies of an
unknown disease.

308 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Another bewitchment, made use of in country places,
consists in consecration of nails to works of hatred by
means of the stinking fumigations of Saturn and invoca-
tions of the evil genii; then, in following the footsteps
of the person whom it is sought to torment, and nailing
crosswise every imprint of his feet which can be traced
upon the earth or sand. Yet another and more abominable
practice. A fat toad is selected; it is baptised; the name
and surname of the person to be accursed is given it ; it is-
made to swallow a consecrated host, over which the formulae
of execration have been pronounced. The animal is then
wrapped in the magnetised objects, tied with the hairs of
the victim, upon which the operator has previously spatr
and buried at the threshold of the bewitched person's door,,
or at some point where he is obliged to pass daily. The
elementary spirit of the toad will become a nightmare
and vampire, haunting the dreams of the victim, unless,
indeed, he should know how to send it back to the
operator.

Let us pass now to bewitchments by waxen images. The
sorcerers of the middle ages, eager to please by their sacrileges
him whom they regarded as their master, mixed baptismal
oil and the ashes of consecrated hosts with a modicum of
wax. Apostate priests were never wanting to deliver them
the treasures of the Church. With the accursed wax they
formed an image as much as possible resembling the person*
whom they desired to bewitch. They clothed this image
with garments similar to his, they administered to it the
sacraments which he received, then they called down upon
its head all maledictions which could express the hatred of
the sorcerer, inflicting daily imaginary tortures upon it, so
as to reach and torment by sympathy the person represented
by the image. This bewitchment is more infallible if the-
hair, blood, and, above all, a tooth of the victim can be pro-
cured. It was this which gave rise to the proverbial saying i
You have a tooth against me. There is also bewitchment
by the glance, called the jettatura, or evil eye, in Italy.

WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS 309

During our civil wars, a shopkeeper had the misfortune to
denounce one of his neighbours, who, after a period of de-
tention, was set at liberty, but with his position lost. His
sole vengeance was to pass twice daily the shop of his de-
nouncer, whom he regarded fixedly, saluted, and went on.
Some little time after, the shopkeeper, unable to bear the
torment of this glance any longer, sold his goods at a loss,
and changed his neighbourhood, leaving no address. In a
word, he was ruined.

A threat is a real bewitchment, because it acts power-
fully on the imagination, above all, when the latter receives
with facility the belief in an occult and unlimited power.
The terrible menace of hell, that bewitchment of humanity
during so many centuries, has created more nightmares,
more nameless diseases, more furious madness, than all vices
and all excesses combined. This is what the Hermetic
artists of the middle ages represented by the incredible and
unheard-of monsters which they carved at the doors of
basilicas. But bewitchment by threat produces an effect
altogether contrary to the intentions of the operator when
it is evidently a vain threat, when it does outrage to the
legitimate pride of the menaced person, and consequently
provokes his resistance, or, finally, when it is ridiculous by
its atrocity. The sectaries of hell have discredited heaven.
Say to a reasonable man that equilibrium is the law of
motion and life, and that liberty, which is moral equilibrium,
rests upon an eternal and immutable distinction between
true and false, between good and bad ; tell him that, en-
dowed as he is with free will, he must place himself by his
works in the empire of truth and goodness, or relapse
eternally, like the rock of Sisyphus, into the chaos of false-
hood and evil ; then he will understand the doctrine, and if
you term truth and goodness heaven, falsehood and evil hell,
he will believe in your heaven and hell, over which the
divine ideal rests calm, perfect, and inaccessible to either
wrath or offence, because he will understand that if in
principle hell be eternal as liberty, it cannot in fact be more

310 THE RITUAL OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

than a temporary agony for souls, because it is an expia-
tion, and the idea of expiation necessarily supposes that of
reparation and destruction of evil. This much said, not
with dogmatic intention, which is outside our province, but
to indicate the moral and reasonable remedy for the be-
witchment of consciences by the terrors of the life beyond,
let us speak of the means of escaping the baleful influences
of human wrath. The first among all is to be reasonable
and just, giving no opportunity or excuse to anger. A law-
ful indignation is greatly to be feared ; make haste therefore
to acknowledge and expiate your faults. Should anger
persist after that, then it certainly proceeds from vice ; seek
to know what vice, and unite yourself strongly to the
magnetic currents of the opposite virtue. The bewitchment
will then have no further power upon you. Wash carefully
the clothes which you have finished with before giving them
away ; otherwise, burn them ; never use a garment which
has belonged to an unknown person without purifying it by
water, sulphur, and such aromatics as camphor, incense,
amber, &c.

A great means of resisting bewitchment is not to fear it ;
it acts after the manner of contagious maladies. In times
of epidemic, the terror-struck are the first to be attacked.
The secret of not fearing an evil is not to think about it,
and my advice is completely disinterested since I give it in
a book on magic of which I am the author, when I strongly
urge upon persons who are nervous, feeble, credulous,
hysterical, superstitious devotees, foolish, without energy
and without will, never to open a book on magic, and to
close this one if they have opened it, to turn a deaf ear to
those who talk of the occult sciences, to deride them, never
to believe in them, and to drink water, as said the great
pantagruelist magician, the excellent cure* of Meudon.

As for the wise — and it is time that we turned to them
after espousing the cause of the foolish — they have scarcely
any sorceries to fear save those of fortune, but seeing that
they are priests and physicians, they may be called upon to

WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS 311

cure the bewitched, and this should be their method of pro-
cedure. They must persuade a bewitched person to do
some act of goodness to his bewitcher, render him some
service which he cannot refuse, and lead him directly or
otherwise to the communion of salt. A person who believes
himself bewitched by the execration and interment of the
toad must carry about him a living toad in a horn box. For
the bewitchment of the pierced heart, the afflicted individual
must be made to eat a lamb's heart seasoned with sage and
onion, and to carry a talisman of Venus or of the moon in
a satchel filled with camphor and salt. For bewitchment
by the waxen figure, a more perfect figure must be made,
as much as possible in the likeness of the person; seven
talismans must be hung round the neck ; it must be set in
the middle of a great pantacle representing the pentagram,
and must each day be rubbed slightly with a mixture of oil
and balm, after reciting the Conjuration of the Four to turn
aside the influence of elementary spirits. At the end of
seven days the image must be burnt in consecrated fire, and
one may rest assured that the figure fabricated by the be-
witcher will at the same moment lose all its virtue.

We have already mentioned the sympathetic medicine of
Paracelsus, who medicated waxen limbs and operated upon
the discharges of blood from wounds for the cure of the
wounds themselves. This system permitted the employ-
ment of more than usually violent remedies, and his chief
specifics were sublimate and vitriol. We believe that
homoeopathy is a reminiscence of the theories of Paracelsus
and a return to his wise practices. But we shall follow up
this subject in a special treatise exclusively consecrated to
occult medicine.

Contracts by parents forestalling the future of their
children are bewitchments which cannot be too strongly
condemned ; children dedicated in white, for example,
scarcely ever prosper ; those who were formerly dedicated
to celibacy fell commonly into debauch, or ended in despair
and madness. Man is not permitted to do violence to

312 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

destiny, still less to impose bonds upon the lawful use of
liberty.

As a supplement or appendix to this chapter, we will
add a few words about mandragores and androids, which
several writers on magic confound with the waxen images
serving the purposes of bewitchment. The natural mandra-
gore is a filamentous root which, more or less, presents as a
whole either the figure of a man, or that of the virile
members. It is slightly narcotic, and an aphrodisiacal
virtue was ascribed to it by the ancients, who represented
it as being sought by Thessalian sorcerers for the composi-
tion of philtres. Is this root the umbilical vestige of our
terrestrial origin ? We dare not seriously affirm it, but all
the same it is certain that man came out of the slime of
the earth, and his first appearance must have been in the
form of a rough sketch. The analogies of nature make this
notion necessarily admissible, at least as a possibility. The
first men were, in this case, a family of gigantic, sensitive
mandragores, animated by the sun, who rooted themselves
up from the earth ; this assumption not only does not ex-
clude, but, on the contrary, positively supposes, creative will
and the providential co-operation of a first cause, which we
have REASON to call GOD.

Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on
the culture of the mandragore, and experimented in the
artificial reproduction of a soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun
sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create
men without the concurrence of the female. Others, who
regarded humanity as the synthesis of animals, despaired about
vitalising the mandragore, but they crossed monstrous pairs
and projected human seed into animal earth, only for the
production of shameful crimes and barren deformities. The
third method of making the android was by galvanic
machinery. One of these almost intelligent automata was
attributed to Albertus Magnus, and it is said that St Thomas
destroyed it with one blow from a stick because he was
perplexed by its answers. This story is an allegory ; the

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 313

android was primitive scholasticism, which was broken by
the Summa of St Thomas, the daring innovator who first
substituted the absolute law of reason for arbitrary divinity,
by formulating that axiom which we cannot repeat too
often, since it comes from such a master : " A thing is not
just because God wills it, but God wills it because it is
just."

The real and serious android of the ancients was a secret
which they kept hidden from all eyes, and Mesmer was the
first who dared to divulge it ; it was the extension of the
will of the magus into another body, organised and served
by an elementary spirit ; in more modern and intelligible
terms, it was a magnetic subject.

CHAPTEK XVII

THE WRITING OF THE STARS

WE have finished with infernus, and we breathe the fresh
air freely as we return to daylight after traversing the crypts
of black magic. Get thee behind us, Satan ! We renounce
thee, with all thy pomps and works, and still more with all
thy deformities, thy meanness, thy nothingness, thy decep-
tion ! The Great Initiator beheld thee fall from heaven
like a thunderbolt. The Christian legend changes thee,
making thee set thy dragon's head mildly beneath the foot
of the mother of God. Thou art for us the image of un-
intelligence and mystery; thou art unreason and blind
fanaticism ; thou art the inquisition and its hell ; thou art
the god of Torquemada and Alexander VI. ; thou hast
become the sport of children, and thy final place is at the
side of Polichinello ; henceforth thou art only a grotesque
^character in our foreign theatres, and a means of instruction
in a few so-called religious markets.

314 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

After the sixteenth key of the Tarot, which represents
the downfall of Satan's temple, we find on the seventeenth
leaf a magnificent and gracious emblem. A naked woman,
a young and immortal maid, pours out upon the earth the
juice of universal life from two ewers, one of gold and one
of silver ; hard by there is a flowering shrub, on which rests
the butterfly of Psyche ; above her shines an eight-pointed
star with seven other stars around it. " I believe in
eternal life ! " Such is the final article of the Christian
symbol, and this alone is a profession of faith.

The ancients, when they compared the calm and peaceful
immensity of heaven, thronged with innumerable lights, to
the tumults and darkness of this world, believed themselves
to have discovered in that beautiful book, written in letters
of gold, the final utterance of the enigma of destinies ; in
imagination they drew lines of correspondence between these
shining points of the divine writing, and it is said that the
first constellations marked out by the shepherds of Chaldea
were also the first letters of the kabbalistic alphabet. These
characters, expressed first of all by means of lines, then
enclosed in hieroglyphic figures, would, according to M.
Moreau de Dammartin, author of a very curious treatise on
alphabetic characters, have determined the ancient magi in
the choice of the Tarot figures, which are taken by this man
of learning, as by ourselves, for an essentially hieratic and
primitive book. Thus, in his opinion, the Chinese tseu, the
Hebrew aleph, and the Greek alpha, expressed hieroglyphi-
cally by the figure of the juggler, would be borrowed from
the constellation of the crane, in the vicinity of the celestial
fish, a sign of the eastern hemisphere. The Chinese tcheou,
the Hebrew betk, and the Latin B, corresponding to Pope
Joan or Juno, were formed after the head of the Earn ; the
Chinese ynt the Hebrew ghimel, and the Latin G, represented
by the Empress, would be derived from the constellation of
the Great Bear, &c. The kabbalist Gaffarel, whom we have
cited more than once, erected a planisphere, in which all
the constellations form Hebrew letters ; but we confess that

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 315

the configurations are frequently arbitrary in the highest
degree, and upon the indication of a single star, for example,
we can see no reason why a 1 should be traced rather than
a 1 or a T ; four stars will also give indifferently a n, n, or
n> as well as an X. We are therefore deterred from repro-
ducing a copy of Gaffarel's planisphere, examples of which
are, moreover, not exceedingly rare. It was included in the
work of Montfau^on on the religions and superstitions of
the world, and also in the treatise upon magic published by
the mystic Eckartshausen. Scholars, moreover, are unagreed
upon the configuration of the letters of the primitive alpha-
bet. The Italian Tarot, of which the lost Gothic originals
are much to be regretted, connects by the disposition of its
figures with the Hebrew alphabet in use after the captivity,
and known as the Assyrian alphabet ; but there are frag-
ments of anterior Tarots where the disposition is different.
There should be no conjecture in matters of research, and
hence we suspend our judgment in the expectation of fresh
and more conclusive discoveries. As to the alphabet of the
stars, we believe it to be intuitive, like the configuration of
clouds, which seem to assume any form that imagination
lends them. Star-groups are like points in geomancy or
the pasteboards of cartomancy. They are a pretext for self-
magnetising, an instrument to fix and determine native in-
tuition. Thus, a kabbalist, familiar with mystic hieroglyphics,
will perceive signs in the stars which will not be discerned
by a simple shepherd, but the shepherd, on his part, will
observe combinations that will escape the kabbalist. Country
people substitute a rake for the belt and sword of Orion, while
kabbalist recognises in the same sign as a whole all the
lysteries of Ezekiel, the ten sephiroth arranged in a triadic
lanner, a central triangle formed of four stars, then a line
three stars making the jod, and the two figures taken
jether expressing the mysteries of Bereschith ; finally, four
constituting the wheels of Mercavah, and completing
le divine chariot. Looked at after another manner, and
mging other ideal lines, he will notice a well-formed

316 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

ghimd placed above a jod, in a large daleth, a symbol typi-
fying the strife between good and evil, with the final
triumph of good. As a fact, the ghimel superposed on the jod
is the triad produced by unity, the manifestation of the divine
Word, whilst the reversed daleth is the triad composed of the
evil duad multiplied by itself.

ORION

Thus regarded, the figure of Orion would be identical with
that of the angel Michael doing battle with the dragon, and
the appearance of this sign, so understood, would be, for the
kabbalist, a portent of victory and happiness.

A long contemplation of the sky exalts the imagination,
and then the stars respond to our thoughts. The lines
drawn mentally from one to another by the primitive
observers must have given man his first notions of geometry.
Accordingly, as our soul is troubled or at rest, the stars
seem burning with menace or sparkling with hope. The

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 317

sky is thus the mirror of the human soul, and when we think
that we are reading in the stars it is in ourselves we read.

Gaffarel, applying the prophecies of celestial writing to
the destinies of empires, says that not in vain did the
ancients place all signs of evil augury in the northern region
of the sky ; calamities have been in all ages regarded as
coming from the north to spread themselves over the earth
by the invasion of the south. " For this reason," he tells
us, " the ancients represented in the northern parts of the
heaven a serpent or dragon near two bears, since these
animals are the true hieroglyphs of tyranny, pillage, and
all oppression. As a fact, glance at history, and you will
see that all great devastations proceed from the north. The
Assyrians or Chaldeans, incited by Nabuchodonosor or
Salmanasor, exhibited this truth in abundance by the de-
struction of the most splendid and most holy temple and
city in the universe, and by the complete overthrow of a
people whom God himself had taken under his special pro-
tection, of whom he specially termed himself father. And
that other Jerusalem, Eome the blessed, has not it, too, ex-
perienced frequently the violence of this evil northern race,
when it beheld its altars demolished and the towers of its
proud edifices brought level with the foundations, through
the cruelty of Alaric, Genseric, Attila, and the other princes
of the Goths, Huns, Vandals, and Alain. . . . Very pro-
perly, therefore, in the secrets of this celestial writing, do
we read calamities and misfortunes on the northern side,
since a septentrione pandetur omne malum. Now, the word

in, which we translate by pandetur, is also equivalent of
e depingetur or scribetur, and the prophecy signifies equally:
All the misfortunes of the world are written in the northern
sky."

We have transcribed this passage at length, because it is

not without application in our day, when the north once

more seems to threaten Europe ; * but it is also the destiny

of hoar-frost to be melted by the sun, and the darkness

* This passage was written before the Crimean War.

318 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

disappears of itself when the light manifests. Such is our
final word of prophecy, and the secret of the future.
Gaffarel adds some prognostics drawn from the stars, as, for
example, the progressive weakening of the Ottoman empire ;
but, as already said, his constellated letters are exceedingly
arbitrary. He states, for the rest, that he derived his pre-
dictions from a Hebrew kabbalist, Rabbi Chomer, but does
not himself pretend to understand him especially well.

Here follows the table of magical characters traced after
the zodiacal constellations by the ancient astrologers ; each of
them represents the name of a genius, be he good or evil.
It will be known that the signs of the Zodiac correspond to
various celestial influences, and consequently signify an
annual alternative of good or evil.

The names of the genii designated by the above characters
are : — For the Earn, SATAARAN and Sarahiel ; for the Bull,
BAGDAL and Araziel-, for the Twins, SAGRAS and Sarawl\

THE WRITING OP THE STARS 319

for the Crab, RAHDAR and Phakiel ; for the Lion, SAGHAM
and Seratiel ; for the Virgin, IADARA and Schaltiel ; for the
Balance, GRASGARBEN and Hadakiel ; for the Scorpion,
RIEHOL and Saissaiel ; for the Archer, VHNORI and Saritaiel ;
for the Goat, SAGDALON and Semdkiel; for the Water-
Bearer, ARCHER and Ssakmakiel ; for the Fishes, RASAMASA
and Vacdbid.

The wise man, who would read the sky, must observe also
the days of the moon, the influence of which is very great
in astrology. The moon successively attracts and repels the
magnetic fluid of the earth, and thus produces the ebb and
flow of the sea ; we must, therefore, be well acquainted with
its phases and be able to distinguish its days and hours.
The new moon is propitious to the beginning of all magical
works ; from first quarter to full moon its influence is
warm ; from full moon to third quarter it is dry ; and from
third quarter to last it is cold. Here follow the special
characters of all the days of the moon, distinguished by the
twenty-two Tarot keys and by the signs of the seven
planets.

1. The Juggler, or Magus.

The first day of the moon is that of the creation of the
moon itself. This day is consecrated to mental enterprises,
and should be favourable for opportune innovations.

2. Pope Joan, or Occult Science.

The second day, the genius of which is Enediel, was the
th of creation, for the moon was made on the fourth day.
birds and fishes, created on this day, are the living
deroglyphs of magical analogies and of the universal doctrine
)f Hermes. The water and air, which were thereby filled
ith the forms of the Word, are the elementary figures of
Mercury of the Sages, that is, of intelligence and speech,
lis day is propitious to revelations, initiations, and great
)veries of science.

320 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

3. The Celestial Mother, or Empress.

The third day was that of man's creation. So is the
moon called the MOTHER in Kabbalah when it is represented
in association with the number 3. This day is favourable
to generation, and generally to all productions, whether of
body or mind.

4. The Emperor, or Ruler.

The fourth day is baleful ; it was that of the birth
of Cain ; but it is favourable to unjust and tyrannical
enterprises.

5. The Pope, or Hierophant.

The fifth day is fortunate; it was that of the birth
of Abel.

6. The Lover, or Liberty.

The sixth is a day of pride ; it was that of the birth of
Lamech, who said unto his wives : " I have slain a man to
my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall
be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."
This day is propitious for conspiracies and rebellions.

7. The Chariot.

On the seventh day, birth of Hebron, who gave his name
to the first of the seven sacred cities of Israel. A day of
religion, prayers, and success.

8. Justice.
Murder of Abel. Day of expiation.

9. The Old Man, or Hermit.
Birth of Methuselah. Day of blessing for children.

10. EzekieVs Wheel of Fortune.
Birth of Nabuchodonosor. Eeign of the Beast. Fatal day.

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 321

11. Strength.

Birth of Noah. Visions on this day are deceitful, but it
is one of health and long life for children born on it.

12. The Victim, or Hanged Man.

Birth of Samuel. Prophetic and kabbalistic day, favourable
to the fulfilment of the great work.

13. Death.

Birthday of Canaan, the accursed son of Cham. Baleful
day and fatal number.

14. The Angel of Temperance.

Blessing of Noah on the fourteenth day of the moon.
This day is governed by the angel Cassiel of the hierarchy
of Uriel.

15. Typhon, or the Devil.

Birth of Ishmael. Day of reprobation and exile.

16. The Masted Tower.

Birthday of Jacob and Esau ; the day also of Jacob's
predestination, to Esau's ruin.

17. The Glittering Star.

Fire from heaven burns Sodom and Gomorrah. Day of
salvation for the good, and ruin for the wicked ; on a
Saturday dangerous. It is under the dominion of the

>rpion.

18. The Moon.

Birth of Isaac. Wife's triumph. Day of conjugal
ion and good hope.

19. The Sun.

Birth of Pharaoh. A beneficent or fatal day for the
jat of earth, according to the different merits of the
great.

x

322 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

20. The Judgment.

Birth of Jonas, the instrument of God's judgment. Pro-
pitious for divine revelations.

21. The World.

Birth of Saul, material royalty. Danger to mind and
reason.

22. Influence of Saturn.
Birth of Job. Day of trial and suffering.

23. Influence of Venus.

Birth of Benjamin. Day of preference and tenderness.

24. Influence of Jupiter.
Birth of Japhet.

25. Influence of Mercury.
Tenth plague of Egypt.

26. Influence of Mars.
Deliverance of the Israelites, and passage of the Eed Sea.

2 7. Influence of Diana, or Hecate.
Splendid victory achieved by Judas Maccabeus.

28. Influence of the Sun.

Samson carries off the gates of Gaza. Day of strength
and deliverance.

29. The Fool of the Tarot.
Day of failure and miscarriage in all things.

We see from this rabbinical table, which John Belot and
others borrowed from the Hebrew kabbalists, that these ancient
masters concluded a posteriori from facts to presumable in-

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 323

fluences, which is completely within the logic of the occult
sciences. We see also what diverse significations are included
in the twenty-two keys which form the universal alphabet
of the Tarot, together with the truth of our assertions, when
we say that all secrets of the Kabbalah and magic, all
mysteries of the elder world, all science of the patriarchs,
all historical traditions of primeval times, are enclosed in
this hieroglyphic book of Thoth, Enoch, or Cadmus.

An exceedingly simple method of finding celestial horo-
scopes by onomancy is that which we are about to describe ;
it harmonises Gaftarel with our own views, and its results
are most astounding in their exactitude and depth. Take
a black card ; cut therein the name of the person for whom
you wish to make the consultation ; place this card at the
end of a tube which must diminish towards the eye of the
observer ; then look through it alternately towards the four
cardinal points, beginning at the east and finishing at the
north. Take note of all the stars which you see through
the letters ; convert these letters into numbers, and, with
the sum of the addition written down in the same manner,
renew the operation ; then compute the number of stars
you have ; next, adding this number to that of the name,
again cast up and write the sum of the two numbers in
Hebrew characters. Again renew the operation; inscribe
separately the stars which you have noticed ; then find the
names of all the stars in the planisphere ; classify them
according to their size and brightness, choosing the most
brilliant of all as the pole-star of your astrological operation ;
then find, in the Egyptian planisphere, the names and
figures of the genii to which these stars belong. A good
example of the planisphere will be found in the atlas to the
great work of Dupuis. You will then know the fortunate and
unfortunate signs which enter into the name of the person,
and what is their influence ; whether in childhood, which
is the name traced at the east ; in youth, which is the name
traced at the south ; in mature age, which is the name at
the west ; in decline, which is the name at the north ; or,

824 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

finally, during the whole life, obtained from the stars which
enter into the entire number formed by the addition of the
letters and stars. This astrological operation is simple, easy,
and requires few calculations ; it connects with the highest
antiquity, and belongs evidently to primitive patriarchal
magic, as will be seen by studying the works of Gaffarel
and his master Eabbi Chomer. Onomantic astrology was
practised by the old Hebrew kabbalists, as is proved from
their observations preserved by Eabbi Chomer, Kabbi Kapol,
Rabbi Abjudan, and other masters in Kabbalah. The
menaces of the prophets uttered against various nations
were based upon the characters of the stars found vertically
over them in the permanent correspondence of the celestial
and terrestrial spheres. Thus, by writing in the sky of
Greece the Hebrew name of that country |V or jy, and
translating the numbers, they obtained the word 2"in, which
signifies destroyed, desolated.

CHABAB.

Destroyed) Desolated.
Sum 12.

J \ »
561

JAVAN.

Greece.
SumlZ.

Hence they inferred that after a cycle of twelve periods
Greece would be destroyed and desolated. A short time
before the sack of Jerusalem and its temple by Nabuzardan,,
the kabbalists remarked eleven stars disposed in the
following manner vertically above the temple : —

THE WRITING OF THE STARS 325

All these entered into the word wan, written from south to
west, the term signifying reprobation and abandonment
without mercy. The sum of the number of the letters is
423, exactly the period of the duration of the temple.
Destruction threatened the empires of Persia and Assyria, in
the shape of four vertical stars which entered into the three
letters an, fioev, and the fatal period indicated was 208
years. So, also, four stars announced to the kabbalistic
rabbins of another period the fall and division of the empire
of Alexander ; they entered into the word ViB, Parad, to
divide, 284, the number of this word, indicating the entire
duration of this empire, both as to root and branches.
According to Eabbi Chomer, the destinies of the Ottoman
power at Constantinople would be fixed aiid announced
beforehand by four stars, entering into the word HN2, Caah,
signifying to be feeble, weak, and drawing to its end. The
stars being more brilliant in the letter N, indicated a capital,
and gave it the numerical value of a thousand. The three
letters combined make 102 5, which must be computed from
the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II., a calculation
which still holds out several centuries of existence to the
enfeebled empire of the sultans, at present sustained by all
Europe combined. The MANE THECEL PHARES which
Balthazar, in his intoxication, saw written on the wall of
his palace by the glare of the torches, was an onomantic in-
tuition similar to that of the rabbins. Initiated, no doubt, by
his Hebrew diviners in the reading of the stars, Balthazar
operated mechanically and instinctively upon the lamps of
his nocturnal feast, as he would upon the stars of heaven.
The three words which he had formed in his imagination
soon became indelible to his eyes, and paled all the lights of
his banquet. It was easy to predict an end like that of
Sardanapalus to a king who abandoned himself to orgies in
a besieged town.

326 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

In conclusion, we have said, and we repeat, that magnetic
intuitions alone give value and reality to all kabbalistic and
astrological calculations, puerile possibly, and completely
arbitrary, when made without inspiration, by cold curiosity,
and in the absence of a powerful will.

CHAPTEE XVIII

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM

LET us now adventure in Thessaly, the country of enchant-
ments. Here was Apuleius deluded like the companions of
Ulysses, and underwent a shameful metamorphosis. Here
all is magical, — the birds that fly, the insects humming in
the grass, even the trees and flowers ; here in the moon-
light are brewed those poisons which compel love; here
spells are devised by the stryges to render them young and
lovely like the Charites. 0 all ye youths, beware !

The art of poisoning the reason, or of philtres, seems, as
a fact, if traditions may be trusted, to have developed its
venomous efflorescence more abundantly in Thessaly than
elsewhere ; there, also, magnetism played its most important
part, for exciting or narcotic plants, bewitching and harmful
animal substances, derived all their power from enchant-
ments— that is to say, sacrifices accomplished and words
pronounced by sorcerers when* preparing philtres and
beverages. Stimulating substances, and those in which
phosphorus predominates, are naturally aphrodisiacal.
Anything which acts strongly on the nervous system
may determine passional exaltation, and when a skilful and
persevering will knows how to direct and influence these
natural tendencies, it can make use of the passions of others
to the profit of its own, and will soon reduce the most
independent personalities into instruments of its pleasures.

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 327

From such influence it behoves us to seek protection, and to
give arms to the weak is our purpose in writing this
chapter. These, in the first place, are the devices of the
enemy. The man who seeks to compel love — we attribute
such unlawful manoauvres to men only, assuming that
women can never have need of them — must in the first
place make himself observed by the person whom he desires,
and must contrive to impress her imagination. He must
inspire her with admiration, astonishment, terror, even with
horror, failing all other resources ; but at any cost he must
set himself apart in her eyes from the rank of ordinary
men, and, with or against her will, must make himself a
place in her memory, her apprehensions, her dreams. The
type of Lovelace is certainly not the admitted ideal of the
type of Clarissa, but she thinks of him incessantly to
condemn him, to execrate him, to compassionate his victims,
to desire his conversion and repentance ; next she seeks his
regeneration by devotion and forgiveness ; later on secret
vanity whispers to her how grand it would be to fix the
affections of a Lovelace, to love him, and yet to withstand
him. Behold, then, Clarissa surprised into loving Lovelace !
She chides herself, blushes, renounces a thousand times,
and loves him a thousand more ; then, at the supreme
moment, she forgets to resist him. Had angels been women,
as represented by modern mysticism, Jehovah, indeed,
would have acted as a wise and prudent father by placing
Satan at the gate of heaven. It is a serious imposition on
the self-love of some amiable women to find that man
fundamentally good and honourable who enamoured them
when they thought him a scapegrace. The angel leaves
him disdainfully, saying : " You are not the devil ! " Play
the devil as well as you can, if you wish to allure an angel.
No licence is possible to a virtuous man. " For what does
he take us ? " say the women. " Does he think us less
strict than he is ? " But everything is forgiven in a rascal.
" What else could you expect ? " The part of a man with
high principles and of rigid character can never be a power

328 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

save with women whom no one wishes to fascinate ; the
rest, without exception, adore the reprobates. It is quite
the opposite with men, and this contrast has made modesty
woman's dower, the first and most natural of her coquetries.
One of the distinguished physicians and most amiable men
of learning in London told me last year that one of his
clients, when leaving the house of a distinguished lady,
observed to him : " I have just had a strange compliment

from the Marchioness of . Looking me straight in

the face, she said : * Sir, you will not make me flinch before
your terrible glance ; you have the eyes of Satan.' " " Well,"
answered the doctor, smiling, " you, of course, put your arms
round her neck and embraced her ? " " Not at all ; I was
overwhelmed by her sudden onslaught." " Beware how you
call on her again, then, my friend, you will have fallen
deeply in her estimation!"

The office of executioner is commonly said to go down
from father to son. Do executioners really have children ?
Undoubtedly, as they never fail to get wives. Marat had a
mistress who loved him tenderly, he, the loathsome leper ;
but still it was that terrible Marat, who caused the world
to tremble. Love, above all in a woman, may be termed a
veritable hallucination; for want of a prudent motive, it
will frequently select an absurd one. Deceive Joconde for
a baboon, what horror ! — Ah ! but supposing it is a horror,
why not perpetrate it ? It must be pleasant to be occa-
sionally guilty of a small abomination !

Given this transcendental knowledge of the woman,
another device can be adopted to attract her notice — not
to concern oneself with her, or to do so in a way which is
humiliating to her self-love, treating her as a child and
deriding all notion of paying court to her. The parts are
then reversed ; she will move heaven and earth to tempt
you ; she will initiate you into secrets which women keep
back; she will vest and unvest before you, making such
observations as : " Between women — among old friends — I
have no fear about you — you are not a man for me," &c.

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 329

Then she will watch your expression ; if she find it calm and
indifferent, she will be indignant ; she will approach you
under some pretext, brush you with her tresses, permit her
bodice to slip open. Women, in such cases, occasionally
will risk a violence, not out of desire, but from curiosity,
from impatience, and from provocation. A magician of any
spirit will need no other philtres than these ; he will also
use flattering words, magnetic breathings, slight but volup-
tuous contacts, by a kind of hypocrisy, and as if uncon-
scious. Those who resort to potions are old, idiotic, ugly,
impotent. Where, indeed, is the use of the philtre ? Any
one who is truly a man has always at his disposal the means
of making himself loved, providing he does not seek to
usurp a place which is occupied. It would be a sovereign
blunder to attempt the conquest of a young and affectionate
bride during the first felicities of the honeymoon, or of a
fortified Clarissa already made miserable by a Lovelace, or
bitterly lamenting her love.

We shall not discuss here the impurities of black magic
on the subject of philtres ; we have done with the coctions
of Canidia. The epodes of Horace tell us after what
manner this abominable Roman sorceress compounded her
poisons, while for the sacrifices and enchantments of love,
we may refer to the Eclogues of Virgil and Theocritus,
where the ceremonials for this species of magical work are
minutely described. Nor shall we need to reproduce the
recipes of the Grimoires or of the Little Albert, which any
one can consult for themselves. All these various practices
connect with magnetism or poisonous magic, and are either
foolish or criminal. Potions which enfeeble mind and
disturb reason assure the empire already conquered by an
evil will, and it was thus that the empress Casonia is said
to have fixed the savage love of Caligula. Prussic acid is
the most terrible agent in these envenomings of thought,
and hence we should all beware of extractions with an
almond flavour, and never tolerate in bedchambers the
presence of laurel-almond, datura stramonium, almond

330 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

soaps or washes, and generally all perfumes in which this
odour predominates, above all, when its action on the brain
is seconded by that of amber.

To weaken the activity of intelligence is to strengthen
proportionally the forces of unreasoning passion. Love of
that kind which the malefactors we are concerned with
would inspire is a veritable stupefaction and the most
shameful of moral bondages. The more we enervate a slave,,
the more incapable we make him of freedom, and here lies
the true secret of the sorceress in Apuleius and the potions
of Circe. The use of tobacco, by smoking or otherwise, is
a dangerous auxiliary of stupefying philtres and brain
poisons. Nicotine, as we know, is not less deadly than
prussic acid, and is present in tobacco in larger quantities
than is this acid in almonds. The absorption of one will
by another frequently changes a whole series of destinies,
and not for ourselves only should we watch our relations,
learning to distinguish pure from impure atmospheres, for
the true philtres, and those most dangerous, are invisible ;
these are the currents of vital radiating light, which, min-
gling and interchanging, produce attractions and sympathies,
as magnetic experiments leave no room to doubt. The
history of the Church tells us that an arch-heretic named
Marcos infatuated all women by breathing on them, but his
power was destroyed by a valiant Christian female, who fore-
stalled him in breathing, and said to him : " May God judge
thee ! " The cure Gaufridy, who was burnt as a sorcerer,
pretended to enamour all women who came in contact with
his breath. The notorious Father Girard, a Jesuit, was
accused by his penitent, Mile. Cardier, of completely destroy-
ing her self-control by breathing on her. The excuse was
most necessary to minimise the horrible and ridiculous
nature of her accusations against this priest, whose guilt,
moreover, has never been well established, though, con-
sciously or unconsciously, he had certainly inspired an
exceedingly shameful passion in the miserable girl.

" Mile. Kanfaing, having become a widow in 16 — ,'*

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 331

says Dom Calmet in his " Treatise on Apparitions," " was
sought in marriage by a physician named Poirot. Failing
to obtain a hearing, he thereupon gave her potions to induce
love, and these caused extraordinary derangements in the
health of the lady, increasing to such a degree that she was
believed to be possessed, and physicians, baffled by her case,
recommended her for the exorcisms of the Church. There-
upon, by command of M. de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, the
following were named as her exorcists : M. Viardin, doctor
in theology, the state councillor of the Duke of Lorraine, a
Jesuit, and a capuchin, but in the long course of their cere-
monies, almost all the clergy of Nancy, the aforesaid lord
bishop, the bishop of Tripoli, suffragan of Strasbourg, M.
de Nancy, formerly ambassador of the most Christian King
at Constantinople and then priest of the Oratory, Charles
of Lorraine, Bishop of Verdun, two Sorbonne doctors specially

leputed to assist, frequently exorcised her in Hebrew, in

rreek, and in Latin, and she invariably replied to them
jrtinently, though she herself could scarcely read even
itin. Mention is made of the certificate given by M.

ficholas de Harlay, learned in the Hebrew tongue, who
jognised that Mile. Eanfaing was really possessed, that
le had answered the mere motion of his lips without any

ittered words, and had given numerous other proofs. The
sieur Gamier, doctor of the Sorbonne, having also com-
manded her several times in the Hebrew language, she
replied lucidly, but in French, saying that the pact bound
her to speak in ordinary language. The demon added : " Is
it not sufficient for me to shew that I understand what you
say ? >f The same doctor, addressing him in Greek, inad-
vertently used one case for another, whereupon the possessed
woman, or rather the devil, said : " You have blundered."
The doctor replied in Greek, " Point out my error." The
devil answered, " Be satisfied that I mention the mistake ; I
shall tell you no more." The doctor bade him be silent in
Greek, and he retorted, " You bid me be silent, and I will
not be silent."

332 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

This remarkable example of hysterical affection carried
into the region of ecstasy and demonomania, as the con-
sequence of a potion administered by a man who believed
that he was a sorcerer, proves, better than anything we could
say, the omnipotence of will and imagination reacting one
upon another, and the strange lucidity of ecstatics or som-
nambulists, who comprehend speech by reading it in thought,
though they have no knowledge of the words. I make no
question as to the sincerity of the witnesses cited by Dom
Calmet ; I am merely astonished that men so serious passed
by the difficulty which the pretended demon experienced
over answering in a tongue foreign to the sufferer. Had
their interlocutor been what they understood by a demon,
he would have spoken as well as understood Greek ; the
one would have been as easy as the other to a spirit so
learned and satirical. Dom Calmet does not stop here with
his history ; he enumerates a long series of insidious ques-
tions and unserious injunctions on the part of the exercisers,
and a like sequence of more or less congruous replies by the
poor sufferer, who was always ecstatic and somnambulistic.
It is needless to add that the excellent father draws pre-
cisely the luminous conclusions of the not less excellent M.
de Mirville. The phenomena being above the comprehen-
sion of the witnesses, they were all ascribed to perdition.
Splendid and instructed conclusion ! The most serious part
of the business is that the physician Poirot was arraigned as
a magician, confessed, like all others, under torture, and
was burnt. Had he, by any potion, really attempted the
reason of the woman in question, he would have deserved
punishment as a poisoner ; that is the most that we can
say.

But the most terrific of all philtres are the mystical
exaltations of misdirected devotion. Will ever any impuri-
ties equal the nightmares of St Anthony or the tortures of
St Theresa and St Angela de Foligny ? The last applied a
red hot iron to her rebellious flesh, and found that the
material fire was cooling to her hidden ardours. With what

PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 333

violence does nature cry out for that which is denied her,
but is brooded over continually to increase detestation
thereof ! The pretended bewitchments of Magdalen Bavan,
of Miles, de la Palud, and de la Cadiere, began with mysti-
cism. The excessive fear of a given thing makes it almost
invariably inevitable. To follow the two curves of a circle
is to reach and to meet at the same point. Nicholas
Remigius, criminal judge of Lorraine, who burnt alive eight
hundred women as sorcerers, beheld magic everywhere ; it
was his fixed idea, his mania. He was eager to preach a
crusade against sorcerers, with whom Europe, in his opinion,
was swarming; in despair that his word was not taken
when he affirmed that nearly everyone in the world had
been guilty of magic, he ended by declaring that he was
himself a sorcerer, and was burned on his own confession.

To preserve ourselves against evil influences, the first
condition is therefore to forbid excitement to the imagina-
tion. All those who are prone to excitement are more or
less mad, and a maniac is ever governed by his mania.
Place yourself, then, above puerile fears and vague desires ;
believe in supreme wisdom, and be assured that this wisdom,
having given you understanding as the means of knowledge,
cannot seek to lay snares for your intelligence or reason.
Everywhere about you, you behold effects proportioned to
their causes ; you find causes directed and modified in the
domain of humanity by understanding ; in a word, you find
goodness stronger and more respected than evil ; why should
ou assume an immense unreason in the infinite, seeing
t there is reason in the finite ? Truth is hidden from no
e. God is visible in His works, and He requires nothing
ntrary to its nature from any being, for He is himself the
thor of that nature. Faith is confidence ; have confidence,
not in men who malign reason, for they are fools or im-
postors, but in the eternal reason which is the Divine Word,
that true light which is offered like the sun to the intuition
of every human creature coming into this world. If you
believe in absolute reason, and if you desire truth and

334 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

justice before all things, you will have no occasion to fear
anyone, and you will love those only who are deserving of
love. Your natural light will repel instinctively that of the
wicked, because it will be ruled by your will. Thus, even
poisonous substances, which it is possible may be adminis-
tered to you, will not affect your intelligence ; ill, indeed,
they may make you, but never criminal.

What most contributes to render women hysterical is
their soft and hypocritical education; if they took more
exercise, if they were instructed more frankly and fully in
matters of the world, they would be less capricious, and con-
sequently less accessible to evil tendencies. Weakness ever
sympathises with vice, because vice is a weakness which
assumes the mask of strength. Madness holds reason in
horror, and on all subjects it delights in the exaggerations
of falsehood. In the first place, therefore, cure your diseased
intelligence. The cause of all bewitchments, the poison of
all philtres, the power of all sorcerers, are there. As to
narcotics or other drugs which may be administered to you,
it is a subject for the physician and the law, but we do not
think that such enormities will be largely reproduced at this
day. Lovelaces no longer stupefy Clarissas otherwise than
by their gallantries, and potions, like abductions by masked
men and imprisonments in subterranean dungeons, have
even passed out of our romances. All these must be rele-
gated to the Confessional of the Black Penitents or the ruins
of the Castle of Udolpho.

THE MASTERY OF THE SUN 335

CHAPTER XIX

THE MASTERY OF THE SUN

WE come now to that number which is attributed in the
Tarot to the sign of the sun. The denary of Pythagoras
and the triad multiplied by itself represent wisdom in its
application to the absolute. It is with the absolute, there-
fore, that we are concerned here. To discover the absolute
in the infinite, the indefinite, and the finite, such is the great
work of the sages, that which is termed by Hermes the
work of the sun. To find the immovable foundations of true
religious faith, of philosophical truth, and of metallic transmuta-
tion, this is the whole secret of Hermes, this is the philosophical
stone. Now, this stone is both one and manifold ; it is de-
composed by analysis and recomposed by synthesis. In the
analysis it is a powder, the alchemical powder of projection ;
before the analysis and in the synthesis it is a stone. The
philosophical stone, say the masters, must not be exposed to
the air, nor to the eyes of the profane ; it must be kept in
concealment and preserved carefully in the most secret recep-
tacle of the laboratory, the key of the place being always
carried upon the person.

He who possesses the great arcanum is truly king and is
above any king, for he is inaccessible to all fears and to all
vain hopes. In any malady of soul or body, a single frag-

Iment broken from the precious stone, a single grain of the
divine powder, are more than sufficient for their cure. " He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear," as the Master said.
Salt, sulphur, and the mercuries are only accessory
elements and passive instruments of the great enterprise.
Everything depends, as we have said, upon the interior
magnes of Paracelsus. The work consists entirely in pro-
jection, and projection is accomplished perfectly by the
effective and realisable intelligence of a single word. There
is but one important operation, and that is sublimation,

336 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

which is nothing else, according to Geber, but the elevation
of the dry substance by means of fire, with adherence to its
proper vessel. He who is desirous of understanding the
great word and of possessing the great arcanum, after
studying the principles of our Doctrine, should read the
Hermetic philosophers carefully, and he will doubtless attain
initiation, as others have attained it ; but for the key of
their allegories he must take the one dogma of Hermes, con-
tained in the Emerald Table, and to classify the knowledge
and direct the operation he must follow the order indicated
in the kabbalistic alphabet of the Tarot, of which an absolute
and complete explanation will be given in the last chapter
of this work.

Among the rare and priceless treatises which contain the
mysteries of the great arcanum, the " Chemical Pathway or
Manual " of Paracelsus must be placed in the first rank, as
comprising all the mysteries of demonstrative physics and
the most secret kabbalah. This unique manuscript is pre-
served in the Vatican Library ; a copy was transcribed by
Sendivogius, and was used by Baron Tschoudy when com-
posing the Hermetic Catechism contained in his work
entitled " The Blazing Star." This catechism, which we
point out to instructed kabbalists as a substitute for the
incomparable treatise of Paracelsus, expounds all the essen-
tial principles of the great work in a form so clear and
complete that a person must be absolutely wanting in the
quality of occult understanding if he fail in attaining the
absolute truth by its study. We shall now give a succinct
analysis of this work, together with a few words by way of
commentary.

Raymond Lully, one of the grand and sublime masters of
science, says that before we can make gold we must have
gold. Out of nothing we can make nothing ; wealth is not
absolutely created ; it is increased and multiplied. Hence,
let aspirants to knowledge understand thoroughly that
neither miracles nor jugglers' feats are required of the
adept. Hermetic science, like all real sciences, is mathe-

THE MASTERY OF THE SUN 337

matically demonstrable. Even its material results are as
exact as a well-worked equation. Hermetic gold is not only
a true doctrine, a shadowless light, truth unalloyed with false-
hood ; it is also material, actual, pure gold, the most precious
which can be found in the veins of the earth, but the living
gold, living sulphur, or true fire of the philosopher, must be
sought in the house of mercury. This fire feeds on air ; to
express its attractive and expansive power, a better comparison
is impossible than that of lightning, which primally is a
dry and terrestrial exhalation united to humid vapour, and
afterwards, in virtue of its exaltation, assuming an igneous
nature, acts on its inherent humidity, which it attracts and
transmutes into its own nature, after which it falls rapidly
to earth, where it is drawn by a fixed nature similar to its
own. These words, enigmatic in form but clear in essence,
express openly what the philosophers understand by their
mercury fructified by sulphur, becoming the master and
regenerator of salt ; it is AZOTH, universal magnesia, the
great magical agent, the astral light, the light of life, fertilised
by animic force, by intellectual energy, which they compare
to sulphur on account of its affinities with divine fire. As
to salt, it is absolute matter. All that is material contains
salt, and all salt can be converted into pure gold by the
combined action of sulphur and mercury, which at times act
with such swiftness that transmutation can take place in an
instant, or in an hour, without labour for the operator and
almost without expense ; at other times, when the tendencies
of the atmospheric media are more contrary, the operation
requires several days, months, and, occasionally, even years.
As we have already said, there are two palmary natural
laws — two essential laws — which, balanced one against an-
other, produce the universal equilibrium of things. These
are fixity and motion, analogous to truth and discovery in
philosophy, and in absolute conception to necessity and
liberty, which are the very essence of God. The Hermetic
philosophers give the name of fixed to all which is ponder-
able, to all which tends by its nature to central rest and

Y

338 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

immobility ; whatsoever obeys more naturally and readily
the law of motion, they term volatile ; and they compose
their stone by analysis, that is, the volatilisation of the
fixed ; then by synthesis, that is, the fixation of the volatile,
which they operate by applying to the fixed, called their
salt, sulphurated mercury or light of life, directed and
rendered omnipotent by a secret operation. They possess
themselves in this manner of all nature, and their stone is
found wherever there is salt, which is equivalent to saying
that no substance is foreign to the great work, and that
even the most apparently contemptible and vile matters can
be changed into gold, which is true in this sense, as we have
said, that all contain the fundamental salt, represented in
our emblems by the cubic stone itself, as may be seen in
the symbolic and universal frontispiece to the keys of Basil
Valentine. To know how to extract from all matter the
pure salt which is concealed in it is to possess the secret of
the stone. It is, therefore, a saline stone, which the od, or
universal astral light, decomposes or recomposes. It is one
and many, for, like ordinary salt, it can be dissolved and
incorporated with other substances. Obtained by analysis,
it may be termed the universal sublimate ; recovered by the
synthetic way, it is the veritable panacea of the ancients, for
it cures all diseases, whether of soul or body, and is termed,
in an eminent manner, the medicine of all nature. When,
by means of absolute initiation, we can dispose of the forces
of the universal agent, this stone is always to our hand, for
its extraction is then a simple and easy operation, far differ-
ent from projection or metallic realisation. The stone in
its sublimated state must not be exposed to the air, which
might dissolve it and spoil its virtue. Moreover, to inhale
its exhalations is not devoid of danger. The wise man more
readily conserves it in its natural envelopes, knowing that
he can extract it by a single effort of his will, and a single
application of the universal agent to the envelopes, which
the kabbalists term shells. To express hieroglyphically this
law of prudence, the sages of Egypt ascribed to their mercury,

THE THAUMATURGE 339

personified as Hermanubis, a dog's head, and to their sulphur,
represented by the Baphomet of the temple, or prince of the
Sabbath, that goat's head which brought such odium upon
the occult associations of the middle ages.

For the mineral work, the first matter is exclusively
mineral, but it is not a metal. It is a metallised salt.
This matter is called vegetable, because it resembles a fruit,
and animal, because it produces a kind of milk and blood.
It alone contains the fire by which it must be dissolved.

CHAPTER XX

THE THAUMATURGE

WE have defined miracles as the natural effects of exceptional
causes. The immediate action of the human will upon the
body, or at least that action exercised without visible means,
constitutes a miracle in the physical order. The influence
exercised upon wills or intelligences, either suddenly or
within a given time, and capable of subjugating thoughts,
changing the most determined resolutions, paralysing the
most violent passions — this influence constitutes a miracle
in the moral order. The common error concerning miracles
is to regard them as effects without causes, contradictions of
nature, sudden vagaries of the divine mind, not seeing that
a single miracle of this class would destroy the universal
harmony, and reduce the universe to chaos. There are
miracles which are impossible, even for God, namely, those
which involve absurdity. Could God be absurd for one in-
stant, neither Himself nor the world would be in existence
the moment following. To expect from the divine arbiter
an effect having a disproportionate cause, or even no cause
at all, is what is called tempting God ; it is casting one's
self into the void. God operates by His works — in heaven
by angels, and on earth by men. Hence, in the circle of

340 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

angelic action, the angels can perform all that is possible
for God, and in the human circle of action men can dispose
equally of divine omnipotence. In the heaven of human
conceptions, it is humanity which creates God, and men
think that God has made them in His image because they
have made Him in theirs. The domain of man is all
corporeal and visible nature on earth, and if he cannot rule
suns and stars, he can at least calculate their motion, com-
pute their distances, and identify his will with their influence ;
he can modify the atmosphere, act up to a certain point
upon the seasons, heal or harm his neighbours, preserve life
and inflict death, the conservation of life, including resurrec-
tion in certain cases, as already established. The absolute
in reason and volition is the greatest power which can be
given any man to attain, and it is by means of this power
that he performs what astonishes the multitude under the
name of miracles.

The most perfect purity of intention is indispensable to-
the thaumaturge, and in the next place a favourable current
and unlimited confidence. The man who has come to fear
nothing and desire nothing is master of all. This is the
meaning of that beautiful allegory of the Gospel, wherein,
the Son of God, thrice victor over the unclean spirit, is
ministered unto by angels in the wilderness. Nothing on
earth withstands a free and rational will. When the wise
man says, " I will," it is God Himself who wills, and all
that He commands takes place. It is the knowledge of the
physician, and the confidence placed in him, which constitute
the virtue of his prescriptions, and thaumaturgy is the only
real and efficacious remedy. Hence occult therapeutics are
apart from all vulgar medication. It chiefly makes use of
words and insufflations, and communicates by will a various
virtue to the simplest substances — water, oil, wine, camphor,
salt. The water of homoeopathists is truly a magnetised
and enchanted water, which works by means of faith.
The dynamic substances added in, so to speak, infinitesimal
quantities are consecrations and signs of the physician's wilL

THE THAUMATURGE 341

What is vulgarly called charlatanism is a great means of
real success in medicine, assuming that it is sufficiently
skilful to inspire great confidence and to form a circle of
faith. In medicine, above all, it is faith which saves. There
is scarcely a village which does not possess its male or female
compounder of occult medicine, and these people are almost
every where, and invariably, more successful incomparably than
physicians approved by the faculty. The remedies they
prescribe are often strange or ridiculous, and hence answer
all the better, for they exact and realise more faith on the
part of patients and operators. An old merchant of our
acquaintance, a man of eccentric character and exalted
religious sentiment, after retiring from business, set himself
to exercise gratuitously, and out of Christian charity, occult
medicine in one of the Departments of France. His sole
specifics were oil, insufflations, and prayers. The institution
of a law-suit against him for the illegal exercise of medicine
established in public knowledge that ten thousand cures had
been attributed to him in the space of about five years, and
that the number of his believers increased in proportions
calculated to alarm all the doctors of the district. We saw
also at Mans a poor nun who was regarded as slightly
demented, but she healed, nevertheless, all diseases in the
surrounding country by means of an elixir and plaster of
her own invention. The elixir was taken internally, the
plaster was applied outwardly, so that nothing escaped this
universal panacea. The plaster never stuck upon the skin
save at the place where its application was necessary, and
it rolled up and fell off by itself — such at least was asserted
by the good sister and declared to be the case by the
sufferers. This thaumaturge was also subjected to prosecu-
tion, for she impoverished the practice of all the doctors
round about her ; she was rigidly cloistered, but it was
soon found necessary to produce her at least once a week,
and on the day for her consultations we have seen Sister
Jane-Francis surrounded by the country folk, who had
arrived overnight, awaiting their turn, lying at the convent

342 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

gate ; they had slept upon the ground, and tarried only to
receive the elixir and plaster of the devoted sister. The
remedy being the same in all diseases, it would appear
needless for her to be acquainted with the cases of her
patients, but she listened to them invariably with great
attention, and only dispensed her specific after learning the
nature of the complaint. There was the magical secret.
The direction of the intention imparted its special virtue to
the remedy, which was insignificant in itself. The elixir
was spiced brandy mixed with the juice of bitter herbs ;
the plaster was a compound analogous to theriac as regards
colour and smell ; it was possibly electuary Burgogne pitch,
but whatever the substance, it worked wonders, and the
wrath of the rural folk would have been visited on those
who questioned the miracles of their nun. Near Paris, also,
we knew of an old gardener thaumaturge who accomplished
marvellous cures by putting in his phials the juice of all the
herbs of St John. He had, however, a sceptical brother,
who derided the sorcerer, and the poor gardener, over-
whelmed by the sarcasms of this infidel, began to doubt
himself, whereupon all the miracles ceased, the sufferers lost
confidence, and the thaumaturge, slandered and despairing,
died mad. The Abbe* Thiers, cur£ of Yibraie, in his curious
" Treatise concerning Superstitions," records that a woman,
afflicted with an apparently aggravated ophthalmia, having
been suddenly and mysteriously cured, confessed to a priest
that she had betaken herself to magic. She had long
importuned a clerk, whom she regarded as a magician, to
give her a talisman that she might wear, and he had at
length delivered her a scroll of parchment, advising her at
the same time to wash three times daily in fresh water.
The priest made her give up the parchment, on which were
these words : Eruat diabolus oculos tuos et repleat stercoribus
loca vacantia. He translated them to the good woman, who
was stupefied ; but, all the same, she was cured.

Insufflation is one of the most important practices of
occult medicine, because it is a perfect sign of the trans-

THE THAUMATURGE 343

mission of life. To inspire, as a fact, means to breathe
upon some person or thing, and we know already, by the
one doctrine of Hermes, that the virtue of things has created
words, and that there is an exact proportion between ideas
and speech, which is the first form and verbal realisation of
ideas. The breath attracts or repels, accordingly, as it is
warm or cold. The warm breathing corresponds to positive
electricity, and the cold breathing to negative electricity.
Electrical and nervous animals fear the cold breathing, and
the experiment may be made upon a cat, whose familiarities
are importunate. By fixedly regarding a lion or tiger and
blowing in their face, they would be so stupefied as to be
forced to retreat before us. Warm and prolonged insuffla-
tion restores the circulation of the blood, cures rheumatic
and gouty pains, re-establishes the balance of the humours,
and dispels lassitude. When the operator is sympathetic
and good, it acts as a universal sedative. Cold insufflation
soothes pains occasioned by congestions and fluidic accumu-
lations. The two breathings must, therefore, be used
alternately, observing the polarity of the human organism,
and acting in a contrary manner upon the poles, which
must be treated successfully to an opposite magnetism.
Thus, to cure an inflamed eye, the one which is not affected
must be subjected to a warm and gentle insufflation, cold
insufflation being practised upon the suffering member at
the same distance and in the same proportion. Magnetic
passes have a similar effect to insufflations, and are a real
breathing by transpiration and radiation of the interior air,
which is phosphorescent with vital light ; slow passes con-
stitute a warm breathing which fortifies and raises the
spirits ; swift passes are a cold breathing of dispersive
nature, neutralising tendencies to congestion. The warm
insufflation should be performed transversely, or from below
upward ; the cold insufflation is more effective when directed
downward from above.

We breathe not only by means of mouth and nostrils ;
the universal porousness of our body is a true respiratory

344 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

apparatus, inadequate undoubtedly, but most useful to life
and health. The extremities of the fingers, where all the
nerves terminate, diffuse or attract the astral light accord-
ingly as we will. Magnetic passes without contact are a
simple and slight insufflation ; contact adds sympathetic and
equilibrating impression ; it is good and even necessary, to
prevent hallucinations at the early stages of somnambulism,
for it is a communion of physical reality which admonishes
the brain and recalls wandering imagination ; it must not,
however, be too prolonged when the object is merely to
magnetise. Absolute and prolonged contact is useful when
the design is incubation or massage rather than magnetism
properly so called. We have given some examples of in-
cubation from the most revered book of the Christians ; they
all refer to the cure of apparently incurable lethargies, as
we are induced to term resurrections. Massage is still
largely resorted to in the east, where it is practised with
great success at the public baths. It is entirely a system
of frictions, tractions, and pressures, practised slowly along
the whole length of members and muscles, the result being
renewed equilibrium in the forces, a feeling of complete
repose and well-being, with a sensible restoration of activity
and vigour.

The whole power of the occult physician is in the con-
science of his will, while his whole art consists in exciting
the faith of his patient. " If you have faith," said the
Master, " all things are possible to him who believes." The
subject must be dominated by expression, tone, gesture ;
confidence must be inspired by a fatherly manner, and
cheerfulness stimulated by seasonable and sprightly con-
versations. Eabelais, who was a greater magician than he
seemed, made pantagruelism his special panacea. He com-
pelled his patients to laugh, and all the remedies he sub-
sequently gave them succeeded better in consequence ; he
established a magnetic sympathy between himself and them,
by means of which he communicated to them his own con-
fidence and good humour ; he flattered them in his prefaces,

THE THAUMATURGE 345

termed them his precious, most illustrious patients, and
dedicated his books to them. So are we convinced that
Gargantua and Pantagruel cured more black humours, more
tendencies to madness, more atrabilious whims, at that epoch
of religious animosities and civil wars, than the whole
Faculty of medicine could boast. Occult medicine is essen-
tially sympathetic. Reciprocal affection, or at least real
good will, must exist between doctor and patient. Syrups
and juleps have very little inherent virtue ; they are what
they become through the mutual opinion of operator and
•subject ; hence homeopathic medicine dispenses with them
and no serious inconvenience follows. Oil and wine, com-
bined with salt or camphor, are sufficient for the healing of
all afflictions, and for all external frictions or soothing
applications, oil and wine are the chief medicaments of
the Gospel tradition. They formed the balm of the Good
Samaritan, and in the Apocalypse, when describing the last
plagues, the prophet prays the avenging powers to spare
these substances, that is, to leave a hope and a remedy for
so many wounds. What we term extreme unction was the
pure and simple practice of the Master's traditional medicine,
both for the early Christians and in the mind of the apostle
Saint James, who has included the precept in his epistle to
the faithful of the whole world. " Is any man sick among
you," he writes, " let him call in the priests of the church,
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord." This divine therapeutic science was lost
gradually, and Extreme Unction came to be regarded as a
religious formality necessary as a preparation for death.
At the same time, the thaumaturgic virtue of consecrated oil
<could not be altogether effaced from remembrance by the
traditional doctrine, and it is perpetuated in the passage of
the catechism which refers to Extreme Unction. Faith and
charity were the most signal healing powers among the early
Christians. The source of most diseases is in moral dis-
orders ; we must begin by healing the soul, and then the
cure of the body will follow quickly.

346 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

CHAPTER XXI

THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS

THIS chapter is consecrated to divination, which, in its;
broadest sense, and following the grammatical significance
of the word, is the exercise of divine power, and the
realisation of divine knowledge. It is the priesthood of
the magus. But divination, in general opinion, is concerned
more closely with the knowledge of hidden things. To<
know the most secret thoughts of men; to penetrate the-
mysteries of past and future ; to evoke age by age the
exact revelation of effects by the precise knowledge of
causes ; this is what is universally called divination. Now,
of all mysteries of nature, the most profound is the heart of
man, and at the same time nature forbids its depth to b&
inaccessible. In spite of the deepest dissimulation, despite
the most skilful policy, she herself traces, and makes plain
in the bodily form, in the light of glances, in movements, in
carriage, in voice, a thousand tell-tale indices. The perfect
initiate has no need of these indices ; he perceives the truth
in the light ; he senses an impression which makes known
the whole man, his glance penetrates hearts, he may even
feign ignorance to disarm the fear or hatred of the wicked
whom he knows too well. A man of bad conscience thinks-
always that he is being accused or suspected ; he recognises
himself in a touch of collective satire, he applies that whole
satire to himself, and cries loudly that he is calumniated..
Ever suspicious, but as curious as he is apprehensive, in the-
presence of the magus he is like the Satan of the parable,
or like those scribes who questioned tempting. Ever-
stubborn and ever feeble, what he fears above all is the
recognition that he is in the wrong. The past disquiets
him, the future alarms him ; he seeks to compound with
himself and to believe himself a well-placed and virtuous,
man. His life is a perpetual struggle between good aspira-

THE SCIENCE OP THE PROPHETS 347

tions and evil habits ; he thinks himself a philosopher after
the manner of Aristippe or Horace in accepting all the
corruption of his time as a necessity which he must
undergo ; he distracts himself with some philosophical
pastime, and appropriates the protecting smile of Mecaenas to
persuade himself that he is not simply a battener on famine
like Verres or a parasite of Trimalcion. Such men are
always mercenaries, even in their good works. They decide
to make a gift to a public charity, and they postpone it to
get the interest. The type which I am describing is not
an individual but a class of men with which the magus is
liable to come frequently in contact, especially in our own
century. Let him follow their own example by mistrusting
them, for they will be invariably his most compromising
friends and most dangerous enemies.

The public exercise of divination is unbecoming at the
present period in a veritable adept, for he would be
frequently driven to jugglery and feats of skill in order to
preserve his clients and astonish his public. Accredited
diviners, both male and female, have always secret spies,
who instruct them as to the private life or habits of those
who consult them. A code of signals is established between
cabinet and antechamber; an unknown client at his first
visit receives a number; a day is arranged, and he is
followed ; doorkeepers, neighbours, servants are engaged in
gossip, and details are thus arrived at which overwhelm
simple minds, and cause them to invest an impostor with
the reverence which should be reserved for true science and
genuine divination.

The divination of events to come is possible only in the
case of those the realisation of which is in some sense con-
tained in their cause. The soul, scrutinising by means of
the whole nervous system the circle of the astral light
which influences a man and from him receives an influence,
the soul of the diviner, we repeat, can compass by a single
intuition all the loves and hatreds which that man has
evoked about him ; it can read his intentions in his thought,

348 THE BITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

foresee obstacles that he will encounter, possibly the violent
death which awaits him ; but it cannot foresee his private,
voluntary, capricious determinations of the moment follow-
ing the consultation, unless, indeed, the ruse of the diviner
itself prepares the fulfilment of the prophecy. For example,
you say to a woman who is becoming passd, and is anxious
to secure a husband : You will be present this evening or
to-morrow evening at such or such a performance, and you
will there see a man who will be to your liking. This man
will observe you, and by a curious combination of circum-
stances the result will be a marriage.

You may count on the lady going, you may count on her
seeing a man and believing that he has noticed her, you
may count on her anticipating marriage. It may not come
to that in the end, but she will not lay the blame on you,
because she would be giving up the opportunity for another
illusion ; on the contrary, she will return perseveringly to
consult you.

We have said that the astral light is the great book of
divinations ; the faculty of reading therein is either natural
or acquired, and there are hence two classes of seers, the
instinctive and the initiated. For this reason, children,
uneducated people, shepherds, even idiots, have more
aptitude for natural divination than scholars and thinkers.
The simple herd-boy, David, was a prophet even as Solomon,
king of kabbalists and magi. The perceptions of instinct
are often as certain as those of science ; the persons least
clairvoyant in the astral light are those who reason most.
Somnambulism is a state of pure instinct, and hence som-
nambulists require to be directed by a seer of science;
sceptics and reasoners only lead them astray. Divinatory
vision operates only in the ecstatic state, to arrive at which
state, doubt and illusion must become impossible by en-
chaining or putting to sleep thought. The instruments of
divination are hence only methods of magnetising ourselves
and of self-diversion from exterior light, so that we may pay
attention to the interior light alone. It was for this reason

THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS 349

that Apollonius completely enveloped himself in a woollen
mantle, and fixed his eyes on his navel in the gloom. The
magical mirror of Dupotet is kindred to the device of Apol-
lonius. Hydromancy and vision in the thumb-nail, when
it has been polished and blackened, are varieties of the
magical mirror. Perfumes and evocations stupefy thought ;
water and the colour black absorb the visual rays ; a kind
of dazzlement and vertigo ensue, followed by lucidity in
subjects who have a natural aptitude or are suitably dis-
posed thereto. Geomancy and cartomancy are other means
to the same end; combinations of symbols and numbers,
which are at once fortuitous and necessary, bear enough re-
semblance to the chances of destiny for the imagination to
perceive realities by the pretext of such emblems. The
more the interest is excited, the greater is the desire to see ;
the fuller the confidence in the intuition, the more clear the
vision becomes. To combine the points of geomancy on
chance or to set out the cards for trifling is to jest like
children ; the lots become oracles only when they are
magnetised by intelligence and directed by faith.

Of all oracles, the Tarot is the most astounding in its
answers, because all possible combinations of this universal
key of the kabbalah give oracles of science and of truth for
their solutions. The Tarot was the sole book of the ancient
magi ; it is the primitive Bible, as we shall prove in the
following chapter, and the ancients consulted it as the first
Christians at a later date consulted the Sacred Lots, that is,
Bible verses selected by chance and determined by thinking
of a number. Mile. Lenormand, the most celebrated of our
modern fortune-tellers, was unacquainted with the science of
the Tarot, or knew it only by derivation from Etteilla, whose
explanations are shadows cast upon a background of light.
She knew neither high magic nor the kabbalah, but her
head was filled with ill-digested erudition, and she was in-
tuitive by an instinct which deceived her rarely. The works
she left behind her are Legitimist tomfoolery, ornamented
with classical quotations, but her oracles inspired by the

350 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

presence and magnetism of those who consulted her, were
often astounding. She was a woman in whom extravagance
of imagination and mental rambling were substituted for the
natural affections of her sex ; she lived and died a virgin,
like the ancient druidesses of the isle of Sayne. Had nature
endowed her with beauty, she might have easily at a remoter
epoch played the part of a Melusine or a Velleda.

The more ceremonies employed in the practice of divina-
tion, the more we excite imagination both in ourselves and
in those who consult us. The Conjuration of the Four, the
Prayer of Solomon, the magic sword to disperse phantoms,
may thus be resorted to with success ; we should also evoke
the genius of the day and hour of operation, and offer him a
special perfume ; next we should enter into magnetic and
intuitive correspondence with the consulting person, inquiring
with what animal he is in sympathy and with what in anti-
pathy, and so also concerning his favourite flower or colour.
Flowers, colours, and animals connect in analogical classifi-
cation with the seven genii of the kabbalah. Those who
love blue are idealists and dreamers ; lovers of red are
material and passionate ; those who love yellow are fan-
tastic and capricious ; lovers of green are frequently com-
mercial and crafty ; the friends of black are influenced by
Saturn ; the rose is the colour of Venus, &c. Lovers of the
horse are hard-working, noble in character, and at the same
time yielding and gentle; friends of the dog are affectionate
and faithful ; those of the cat are independent and libertine.
Frank persons hold spiders in special horror ; those of
haughty nature are antipathetic to the serpent ; upright
and fastidious persons cannot tolerate rats and mice ; the
voluptuous loathe the toad, because it is cold, solitary,
hideous, and miserable. Flowers have analogous sympathies
to those of animals and colours, and as magic is the science
of universal analogies, a single taste, one tendency, in a
given person, enables all the rest to be divined ; it is an
application of the analogical anatomy of Cuvier to pheno-
mena in the moral order.

THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS 351

The physiognomy of face and body, the wrinkles on the
brow, the lines on the hands, equally furnish the magus
with precious indications. Metoposcopy and chiromancy
have become separate sciences; their observations, purely
empirical and conjectural, have been compared, examined,
and then united into a body of doctrine by Goglenius,
Belot, Kornphile, Indagine, and Taisnier. The work of the
last-mentioned writer is the most important and complete ;
he combines and criticises the observations and conjectures
of all the others. A modern investigator, the Chevalier
D'Arpentigny, has imparted to chiromancy a fresh degree
of certitude by his remarks on the analogies which really
exist between the characters of persons and the form of
their hands as a whole or in detail. This new science has
been further developed and verified by an artist who is also
a man of letters, rich in originality and skill. The disciple
has surpassed the master, and our amiable and spiritual
Desbarrolles, one of those travellers with whom our great
novelist Alexandre Dumas delights to surround himself in
his cosmopolitan romances, is already cited as a veritable
magician in chiromancy.

The consulting person should also be questioned upon
his habitual dreams ; dreams are the reflection of life, both
interior and exterior. The old philosophers paid them
great attention; the patriarchs regarded them as certain
revelations ; most religious revelations have been given in
dreams. The monsters of perdition are nightmares of
Christianity, and as the author of Smarra has ingeniously
remarked, never could pencil or chisel have produced such
beings if they had not been beheld in sleep. We should
beware of persons whose imagination continually reflects
deformities. Temperament is, in like manner, manifested
by dreams, and as this exercises a permanent influence
upon life, it is necessary to be well acquainted therewith
if we would conjecture a destiny with certitude. Dreams
of blood, of enjoyment, and of light indicate a sanguine
temperament ; those of water, mud, rain, tears, are occasioned

352 THE EITUAL OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC

by a more phlegmatic disposition ; fire by night, darkness,
terrors, spectres, belong to the bilious and melancholic.
Synesius, one of the greatest Christian bishops of the first
centuries, the disciple of that beautiful and pure Hypatia
who was massacred by fanatics after presiding gloriously
over the school of Alexandria, in the inheritance of which
school Christianity should have shared- — Synesius, lyric
poet like Pindar and Callimachus, priest like Orpheus,
Christian like Spiridion of Tremithonte — has left us a
treatise on dreams which has been supplied with a com-
mentary by Cardan. No one concerns themselves now with
these magnificent researches of the mind, because successive
fanaticisms have wellnigh forced the world to despair of
scientific and religious rationalism. St Paul burned
Trismegistus ; Omar burned the disciples of Trismegistus
and of St Paul. 0 persecutors ! 0 incendiaries ! O
scoffers ! when will ye end your work of darkness and
destruction ?

One of the greatest magi of the Christian era, Trithemius,
irreproachable abbot of a Benedictine monastery, learned
theologian, and master of Cornelius Agrippa, has left
among his unappreciated and inestimable works, a treatise
entitled, De septem secundeis, id est intelligentiis sive spiritibus
orbes post Deum moventibus. It is a key of all prophecies
new or old, a mathematical, historical, and simple method
of surpassing Isaiah and Jeremiah in the prevision of all
great events to come. The author in bold outline sketches
the philosophy of history, and divides the existence of the
entire world between the seven genii of the kabbalah. It
is the grandest and widest interpretation ever made of
those seven angels of the Apocalypse who appear successively
with trumpets and cups to pour out the word and its realisa-
tion upon the earth. The duration of each angelic reign
is 354 years and four months, beginning with that of Orifiel,
the angel of Saturn, on the 13th of March, for, according
to Trithemius, this was the date of the world's creation;
it was a period of savagery and darkness. Next came the

THE SCIENCE OF THE PROPHETS 353

reign of Anael, the spirit of Venus, on the 24th of June, in
the year of the world 354, when love began to be the in-
structor of mankind ; it created the family, and the family
led to association and the primitive city. The first civilisers
were poets inspired by love; presently the exaltation of
poetry produced religion, fanaticism, and debauchery, cul-
minating subsequently in the deluge. This state of things
continued till the 25th of October, being the eighth month of
the year A.M. 708, when the reign of Zachariel, the angel of
Jupiter, was inaugurated, under whose guidance men began
to acquire knowledge, and dispute the possession of lands and
dwellings. It was also the epoch of the foundation of towns
and the limitation of empires ; its consequences were civilisa-
tion and war. The need for commerce began, furthermore, to
be felt, at which time — namely, the 24th of February, A.M.
1063 — was inaugurated the reign of Eaphael, angel of
Mercury, angel of science and of the word, of intelligence and
industry. Then letters were invented, the first language
being hieroglyphic and universal, a monument of which
has been preserved in the book of Enoch, Cadmus, Thoth,
and Palamedes ; the kabbalistic clavicle adopted later on by
Solomon, the mystical book of the Theraphim, Urim, and
Thumrnim, the primeval Genesis of the Zohar, and of
William Postel, the mystical wheel of Ezekiel, the rota of
the Kabbalists, the Tarot of the Magi and the Bohemians.
Then were arts invented, and navigation was attempted for
the first time; relations extended, wants multiplied, and
there followed speedily an epoch of general corruption,
preceding the universal deluge, under the reign of Samael,
angel of Mars, which was inaugurated on the 26th of
June, A.M. 1417. After long stupefaction, the world strove
towards a new birth under Gabriel, the angel of the moon,
whose reign began on the 28th of March, A.M. 1771, when
the family of Noah became multiplied, and re-peopled the
whole earth, after the confusion of Babel, until the reign of
Michael, angel of the sun, which commenced on the 24th of
February, A.M. 2126, to which epoch must be referred the

z

354 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

origin of the first dominations, the empire of the children of
Nimrod, the birth of sciences and religions, and the first con-
flicts between despotism and liberty. Trithemius pursues
this curious study throughout the ages, and at corresponding
epochs exhibits the recurrence of ruins ; then civilisation,
born anew by means of poetry and love ; empires, recon-
stituted by the family, enlarged by commerce, destroyed
by war, repaired by universal and progressive civilisation,
subsequently absorbed by great empires, which are the
syntheses of history. The work of Trithemius, from this
point of view, is more comprehensive and independent than
that of Bossuet, and is a key absolute to the philosophy of
history. His exact calculations lead him to the month of
November in the year 1879, epoch of the reign of Michael
and the foundation of a new universal kingdom, prepared
by three centuries and a half of anguish, and a like period
of hope, coinciding exactly with the sixteenth, seventeenth,
eighteenth, and first part of the nineteenth centuries for the
lunar twilight and expectation, with the fourteenth, thirteenth,
twelfth, and second half of the eleventh centuries for the
ordeals, the ignorance, the sufferings, and the scourges of
all nature. We see, therefore, according to this calculation,
that in 1879 — that is, in twenty-four years' time, a uni-
versal empire will be founded, and will secure peace to the
world. This empire will be political and religious ; it will
offer a solution for all problems agitated in our own days,
and will endure for 354 years and 4 months, after which
it will be succeeded by the return of the reign of Orifiel, an
epoch of silence and night. The coming universal empire,
being under the reign of the sun, will belong to him who
holds the keys of the East, which are now being disputed
by the princes of the world's four quarters. But intelligence
and activity are the forces which rule the sun in the superior
kingdoms, and the nation which now possesses the initiative
of intelligence and life will possess also the keys of the
East, and will establish the universal kingdom. To do this
it may previously have to undergo a cross and martyrdom.

THE BOOK OF HERMES 355

analogous to those of the Man-God ; but, dead or living,
among nations its spirit will prevail, and all peoples will
acknowledge and follow in four - and - twenty years the
standard of France, ever victorious, or miraculously raised
from the dead. Such is the prophecy of Trithemius, confirmed
by all our previsions, and grounded in all our hopes.

CHAPTEE XXII

THE BOOK OF HERMES

WE approach the end of our work, and must here give the
universal key and utter the final word. The universal key
of magical works is the key of all ancient religious dogmas,
— the key of the Kabbalah and the Bible, the little key of
Solomon. Now, this clavicle, regarded as lost for centuries,
has been recovered by us, and we have been able to open
the sepulchres of the ancient world, to make the dead speak,
to behold the monuments of the past in all their splendour,
to understand the enigmas of every sphinx, and to penetrate
all sanctuaries. Among the ancients the use of this key was
permitted to none but the high priests, and even its secret was
confided only to the flower of the initiates. Now, this was
the key in question: A hieroglyphic and numeral alphabet,
expressing by characters and numbers a series of universal
and absolute ideas ; then a scale of ten numbers, multiplied
by four symbols, and connected with twelve figures repre-
senting the twelve signs of the zodiac, plus the four genii of
the cardinal points.

The symbolical tetrad, represented in the mysteries of
Memphis and Thebes by the four forms of the sphinx — the
man, eagle, lion, and bull — corresponded with the four ele-
ments of the old world, water being signified by the cup
held by the man or aquarius ; air by the circle or nimbus

356 THE BITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

surrounding the head of the celestial eagle ; fire by the wood
which nourishes it, by the tree fructifying in the heat of
earth and sun, and, finally, by the sceptre of royalty, which
the lion typifies ; earth by the sword of Mithras, who each
year immolates the sacred bull, and, together with its blood,
pours forth that sap which gives increase to all fruits of
earth. Now, these four signs, with all their analogies, ex-
plain the one word hidden in all sanctuaries, that word
which the bacchantes seemed to divine in their intoxication
when they worked themselves into frenzy for Io EVOHE.
What, then, was the meaning of this mysterious term ? It
was the name of the four primitive letters of the mother-
tongue : the Jod, symbol of the vine, or paternal sceptre of
Noah; the HE, type of the cup of libations and also of
maternity ; the VAU, which joins the two, and was depicted
in India by the great and mysterious lingam. Such was the
triple sign of the triad in the divine word ; then the mother
letter appeared a second time to express the fecundity of
nature and woman, and to formulate the doctrine of universal
and progressive analogies descending from causes to effects,
and ascending from effects to causes. Moreover, the sacred
word was not pronounced; it was spelt, and read off in
four words, which are the four sacred words — JOD HE
VAU HE.

The learned Gaffarel regards the teraphim of the Hebrews,
by means of which they consulted the oracles of the urim
and thummim, as the figures of the four kabbalistio animals,
which symbols, as we shall presently show, were summed
up in the sphinxes or cherubs of the ark. In connection
with the usurped Teraphim of Michas, he cites a curious
passage from Philo, which is a complete revelation as to the
ancient and sacerdotal origin of our TAROTS. Gaffarel
thus expresses himself : " He (Philo the Jew), speaking of
the history concealed in the before-mentioned chapter of
Judges, says that Michas made three images of young boys
and three young calves, three also of a lion, an eagle, a
dragon, and a dove, all of fine gold and silver ; so that if

THE BOOK OF HERMES 357

any one sought him to discover a secret concerning his wife,
he interrogated the dove ; concerning his children, the
young boy ; concerning wealth, the eagle ; concerning
strength and power, the lion ; concerning fecundity, the
cherub or bull; concerning length of days, the dragon."
This revelation of Philo, though depreciated by Gaffarel, is
for us of the highest importance. Here, in fact, is our key
of the tetrad, and here also the images of the four symbolical
animals found in the twenty-first key of the Tarot ; that is,
at the third septenary, thus repeating and summarising all
the symbolism expressed by the three septenaries superposed ;
next, the antagonism of colours expressed by the dove and
the dragon ; the circle or ROTA, formed by the dragon or
serpent to typify length of days ; finally, the kabbalistic
divination of the entire Tarot, as practised in later days by
the Egyptian Bohemians, whose secrets were divined and
recovered imperfectly by Etteilla.

We see in the Bible that the high priests consulted the
Lord on the golden table of the holy ark, between the
cherubs, or bull-headed and eagle-winged sphinx ; that they
consulted by the help of the Theraphim, Urim, and Thummi,
and by the Ephod. Now, it is known that the Ephod was a
magical square of twelve numbers and twelve words engraved
on precious stones. The word TerapMm in Hebrew signifies
hieroglyphs or figured signs ; the Urim and Thummi were
the above and beneath, the east and west, the yes and no,
and these signs corresponded to the two pillars of the
Temple, JAKIN and BOHAS. When, therefore, the high
priest wished to consult the oracle, he drew by lot the
Theraphim or tablets of gold, which bore the images of the
four sacred words, and placed them by threes round the
rational or Ephod ; that is, between the two onyx stones
which served as clasps to the little chains of the Ephod.
The right onyx signified Gedulah, or mercy and magnificence ;
the left referred to Geburah, and signified justice and anger.
If, for example, the sign of the lion were found on the left
side of the stone which bore the name of the tribe of Judah,

358 THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the high priest would read the oracle thus : " The staff of
the Lord is angered against Judah." If the Theraphim
represented the man or cup, and were also found on the
left, near the stone of Benjamin, the high priest would
read : " The mercy of the Lord is weary of the offences of
Benjamin, which violate Him in His love. Whence He
will pour out on him the chalice of his wrath," etc. When
the sovereign priesthood ceased in Israel, when all oracles
were silenced in the presence of the Word made man, and
speaking by the mouth of the most popular and mildest of
sages, when the ark was lost, the sanctuary profaned, and
the temple destroyed, the mysteries of the Ephod and Thera-
phim, no longer traced on gold and precious stones, were
written, or, rather, drawn, by some learned kabbalists on ivory,
parchment, gilt and silvered copper, and, finally, on simple
cards, which were always suspected by the official Church as
enclosing a dangerous key to its mysteries. Hence came
those Tarots, the antiquity of which, revealed to the erudite
Court de G-ebelin by the science of hieroglyphs and numbers,
so exercised later the doubtful perspicacity and persistent
investigation of Etteilla. Court de Gebelin, in the eighth
volume of his "Primeval World," gives the figure of the twenty-
two keys and four aces of the Tarot, and demonstrates their
perfect analogy with all symbols of the highest antiquity.
He subsequently endeavours to supply their explanation, and
goes astray naturally, because he does not start from the uni-
versal and sacred tetragram, the Io EVOHE of the Bacchanalia,
the JOB HE VAU HE of the sanctuary, the rnrr of the Kabbalah.
Etteilla or Alliette, preoccupied entirely by his system of
divination and the material profit to be derived from it,
Alliette, formerly barber, having never learned French, or
even orthography, pretended to reform and thus appropriate
the Book of THCT. In the Tarot, now become very scarce,
which he engraved, we find the following naive advertise-
ment on the twenty-eighth card — the eight of clubs :
" Etteilla, professor of algebra and correctors (sic) of the
modern blunders of the ancient book of Thot, lives in the

THE BOOK OF HERMES 359

Eue de 1'Oseille, No. 48, Paris." Etteilla would have
certainly done better not to have corrected the blunders of
which he speaks ; his books have degraded the ancient
work discovered by Court de Gebelin into the domain of
vulgar magic and fortune-telling by cards. He proves
nothing who tries to prove too much ; Etteilla furnishes
another example of this old logical axiom ; at the same
time, his endeavours led him to a certain acquaintance with
the Kabbalah, as may be seen in some rare passages of his
unreadable works. The true initiates who were Etteilla's
contemporaries, the Eosicrucians, for example, and the
Martinists, who were in possession of the true Tarot, as a
work of Saint Martin proves, where the divisions are those
of the Tarot, and this passage of an enemy of the Eosi-
crucians : " They pretend to the possession of a volume
from which they can learn anything that can possibly be
found in other books which now exist or may at any time
be produced. This volume is their reason, in which they
find the prototype of everything that exists by the facility
of analysing, making abstractions, forming a species of
intellectual world, and creating all possible beings. See
the philosophical, theosophical, microcosmic cards." (Con-
spiracy against the Catholic Religion and Sovereigns, by the
author of The Veil raised for the Curious. Paris : Crapard.
1792.) The true initiates, we repeat, who held the Tarot
secret among their greatest mysteries, carefully refrained
from protesting against the errors of Etteilla, and left him
to reveil instead of revealing the arcana of the true clavicles
of Solomon. Hence it is not without profound astonish-
ment that we have discovered intact and still unknown this
key of all doctrines and all philosophies of the old world.
I speak of it as a key, and such it truly is, having the
circle of four decades as its ring, the scale of 22 characters
for its trunk or body, and the three degrees of the
triad for its wards ; as such it was represented by Postel
in his " Key of Things Kept Secret from the Foundation
of the World." He indicates after the following manner

360

THE KITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the occult name of this key, which was known only to
initiates : —

T

o

The word may read EOTA, thus signifying the wheel of
Ezekiel, or TAROT, and then it is synonymous with the
AZOTH of Hermetic philosophers. It is a word which
kabbalistically expresses the dogmatic and natural absolute ;
it is formed of the characters of the monogram of Christ,
according to the Greeks and Hebrews. The Latin K or
Greek P is found between the alpha and omega of the
Apocalypse ; the sacred Tau, image of the cross, encloses
the whole word, as previously represented in our Ritual.
Without the Tarot, the magic of the ancients is a closed
book, and it is impossible to penetrate any of the great
mysteries of the Kabbalah. The Tarot alone interprets the
magic squares of Agrippa and Paracelsus, as we may satisfy
ourselves by forming these same squares with the keys of
the Tarot, and reading off the hieroglyphs thus collected.
These are the seven magical squares of the planetary genii
according to Paracelsus : —

THE BOOK OF HERMES

361

SATURN.

2

9

4

7

5

3

6

1

~8~

JUPITER.

6

12:12

10

~5

10J7T

IT

9

6|7

Ti

14

6j 4

i

MARS.

THE SUN.

9

22

1

32

25

19

7

11

27

18

8

3

19

14

16

15

23

24

18

20

22

21

17

13

22

29

10

19

26

12

36

5

35

6

12

13

VENUS.

22
25

47
23

18J41

47 17

0

42

35
IT

8
29

10

6

14j 9

18

36

12

3

31

16!25

43

19

37

38

14

32 31

26

44

20

21

39

8 33

22

27

45

46

15

40 19

24

03

27

362

THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

MERCURY.

8

52

39

5

24

61

66

11

49

15

14

52

52

12

10

56

41

43

22

14

45

19

18

48

33

34

35

29

20

38

39

25

40

6

27

59

31

30

31

33

17

47

55

28

25

43

42

24

9

51

53

12

13

51

00

16

64

12

15

61

61

6

7

47

THE MOON.

37

70

29

70

21

62

12

14

41

16

28

70

30

71

12

53

14

46

47

20

11

7

31

72

22

35

15

16

48

68

40

81

32

62

25

56

57

17

49

29

7

66

33

65

25

26

58

40

56

31

42

74

34

66

53

27

59

10

51

2

41

75

35

36

77

68

28

19

20

60
69

11
61

65
12

43

25

44
60

76
~5

By adding each of the columns of these squares, you will
obtain invariably the characteristic number of the planet,
and, finding the explanation of this number by the hiero-
glyphs of the Tarot, you proceed to seek the sense of
all the figures, whether triangular, square, or cruciform,
that you find to be formed by the numbers. The result of
this operation will be a complete and profound acquaint-
ance with all the allegories and mysteries concealed by
the ancients under the symbol of each planet, or rather
of each personification of the influences, celestial or human,
upon all events of life.

We have said that the twenty-two keys of the Tarot are
the twenty-two letters of the primitive kabbalistic alphabet,

THE BOOK OF HERMES 363

and here follows a table of the variants of this alphabet
according to divers Hebrew kabbalists.

X Being, mind, man, or God ; the comprehensible object ; unity,

mother of numbers, the first substance.
All these ideas are hieroglyphically expressed by the
figure of the JUGGLER. His body and arms form the letter
aleph, round his head there is a nimbus in the form of oo ,
the emblem of life and the universal spirit ; in front of him
are swords, cups, and pantacles, and he uplifts the miracul-
ous rod towards heaven. He has a youthful figure and curly
hair, like Apollo or Mercury ; the smile of confidence is on
his lips, and the look of intelligence in his eyes.

3 The house of God and man, the sanctuary, the law, the
Gnosis, Kabbalah, the occult church, the duad, wife, mother.

Hieroglpyh of the Tarot, THE FEMALE POPE ; a woman
crowned with a tiara, wearing the horns of the Moon and
Isis, her head enveloped in a mantle, the solar cross on her
breast, and holding a book on her knees, which she conceals
with her mantle. A protestant author of a pretended
history of Pope Joan has met with, and used, for good or
bad, in the interest of his thesis, two curious and ancient
figures of the female pope or sovereign priestess of the
Tarot. These two figures ascribe to her all the attributes of
Isis ; in one she is carrying and caressing her son Horus ;
in the other, she has long and thin hair ; she is seated
between the two pillars of the duad, has a sun with four rays
on her breast, places one hand upon a book, and makes the
sign of sacerdotal esotericism with the other — that is to
say, she uplifts three fingers only, the two others being
folded to signify mystery ; a veil is behind her head, and
on each side of her chair the flowers of the lotus bloom
upon the sea. I strongly commiserate the unlucky scholar
who has seen in this antique symbol nothing but a monu-
mental portrait of his pretended Pope Joan.

364 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

3 The word, the triad, plenitude, fecundity, nature, generation
in the three worlds.

Symbol, THE EMPRESS, a woman, winged, crowned,
seated, and uplifting a sceptre with the orb of the world at
its end ; her sign is an eagle, image of the soul and of life.
This woman is the Venus-Urania of the Greeks, and was
represented by St John in his Apocalypse as the Woman
clothed with the Sun, crowned with twelve stars, and with
the moon beneath her feet. It is the mystical quintessence
of the triad, spirituality, immortality, the queen of heaven.

1 The ports or government of the easterns, initiation, power,
the tetragram, the quaternary, the cubic stone, or its base.

Hieroglyph, THE EMPEROR, a sovereign whose body re-
presents a right-angled triangle, and his legs a cross, the
image of the Athanor of the philosophers.

n Indication, demonstration, instruction, law, symbolism,
philosophy, religion.

Hieroglyph, THE POPE, or grand hierophant. In more
modern Tarots this sign is replaced by the image of Jupiter.
The grand hierophant, seated between the two pillars of
Hermes and of Solomon, makes the sign of esotericism, and
leans upon a cross with three horizontals of triangular
form. Two inferior ministers kneel before him. Having
above him the capitals of the two pillars, and below him
the two heads of the assistants, he is thus the centre of the
quinary, and represents the divine pentagram, giving its
complete meaning. As a fact, the pillars are necessity or
law, the heads liberty or action. A line may be drawn
from each pillar to each head, and two lines from each
pillar to each of the two heads. Thus a square, divided by
a cross into four triangles, is obtained, and in the middle of
this cross is the grand hierophant, we might almost say like

THE CHARIOT OF HERMES.

Seventh Key of the Tarot.

365

366 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

the garden spider in the centre of his web, were such a
comparison becoming to the things of truth, glory, and
light

1 Sequence, interlacement, lingam, entanglement, union, embrace,
strife, antagonism, combination, equilibrium.

Hieroglyph, man between Vice and Virtue. Above him
shines the sun of truth, and in this sun is Love, bending his
bow and threatening Vice with his shaft. In the order of
the ten Sephiroth, this symbol corresponds to TIPHERETH —
that is, to idealism and beauty. The number six represents
the antagonism of the two triads, that is, absolute negation
and absolute affirmation. It is therefore the number of
toil and liberty, and for this reason it connects also with
moral beauty and glory.

T Weapon, sword, cherub's sword of fire, the sacred septenary,
triumph, royalty, priesthood.

Hieroglyph, a cubic chariot with four pillars and an azure
and starry drapery. In the chariot, between the four pillars, a
victor crowned with a circle adorned with three radiant golden
pentagrams. Upon his breast are three superposed squares,
on his shoulders the urim and thummim of the sovereign
sacrificer, represented by the two crescents of the moon in
Gedulah and Geburah ; in his hand is a sceptre surmounted
by a globe, square, and triangle ; his attitude is proud and
tranquil. A double sphinx or two sphinxes joined at the
lower parts are harnessed to the chariot ; they are pulling
in opposite directions, but one is turning his head so that
they are looking in the same direction. The sphinx with
head turned is black, the other is white. On the square
which forms the fore part of the chariot is the Indian
lingam surmounted by the flying sphere of the Egyptians.
This hieroglyph, which we reproduce exactly, is perhaps the
most beautiful and complete of all those which are com-
prised in the clavicle of the Tarot.

THE BOOK OF HERMES 367

n Balance, attraction and repulsion, life, terror, promise, and
threat.

Hieroglyph, JUSTICE with sword and balance.

B Good, horror of evil, morality, wisdom.

Hieroglyph, a sage leaning on his staff, holding a lamp in
front of him, and completely enveloped in his cloak. The
inscription is THE HERMIT or CAPUCHIN, on account of the
hood of his oriental cloak ; his true name, however, is
PRUDENCE, and he thus completes the four cardinal virtues
which seemed imperfect to Court de Gebelin and Etteilla.

* Principle, manifestation, praise, manly honour, phallus,
virile fecundity, paternal sceptre.

Hieroglyph, THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, that is to say, the
cosmogonical wheel of Ezekiel, with a Hermanubis ascending
on the right, a Typhon descending on the left, and a sphinx
in equilibrium above, holding a sword between his lion's
claws — an admirable symbol, disfigured by Etteilla, who
replaced Typhon by a wolf, Hermanubis by a mouse, and
the sphinx by an ape, an allegory characteristic of Etteilla's
Kabbalah.

3 The hand in the act of grasping and holding.

Hieroglyph, STRENGTH, a woman crowned with the vital
oo closes, quietly and without effort, the jaws of a raging
lion.

^ Example, instruction, public teaching.

Symbol, a man hanging by one foot, with his hands
bound behind his back, so that his body makes a triangle
with apex downwards, and his legs a cross above the triangle.
The gallows is in the form of a Hebrew Tau, and the two

368 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

uprights are trees, from each of which six branches have
been lopped. We have previously explained this symbol
of sacrifice and the finished work.

ID The heaven of Jupiter and Mars, domination and force, new
lirth, creation and destruction.

Hieroglyph, DEATH, reaping crowned heads in a meadow
where men are growing.

3 The heaven of the Sun, climates, seasons, motion, changes of
life, which is ever new yet ever the same.

Hieroglyph, TEMPERANCE, an angel with the sign of the sun
upon her forehead, and on the breast the square and triangle
of the septenary, pours from one chalice into another the
two essences which compose the elixir of life.

D The heaven of Mercury, occult science, magic, commerce,
eloquence, mystery, moral force.

Hieroglyph, THE DEVIL, the goat of Mendes, or the
Baphomet of the Temple, with all his pantheistic attributes.
This is the only hieroglyph which was properly understood
and correctly interpreted by Etteilla.

y The heaven of the Moon, alterations, subversions, changes,
failings.

Hieroglyph, a tower struck by lightning, probably that
of Babel. Two persons, doubtless Nimrod and his false
prophet or minister, are precipitated from the summit of
the ruins. One of the personages in his fall perfectly
represents the letter gna'in.

B The heaven of the soul, outpourings of thought, moral in-
fluence of the idea on forms, immortality.

Hieroglyph, the burning star and eternal youth. We
have already described this symbol

THE BOOK OF HERMES 369

X The elements, the visible world, tlie reflected light, material
forms, symbolism.

Hieroglyph, the moon, dew, a crab rising in the water
towards land, a dog and wolf barking at the moon and
chained to the base of two towers, a path lost in the
horizon and sprinkled with blood.

p Composites, the head, apex, prince of heaven.

Hieroglyph, a radiant sun, and two naked children taking
hands in a fortified enclosure. Other Tarots substitute a
spinner unwinding destinies, and others, again, a naked
child mounted on a white horse and displaying a scarlet
standard.

1 Vegetative principle, generative virtue of the earth, eternal
life.

Hieroglyph, THE JUDGMENT. A genius sounds the trumpet
and the dead rise from their tombs. These persons who
are living and were dead, are a man, woman, and child —
the triad of human life.

V The sensitive principle, the flesh, eternal life.

Hieroglyph, THE FOOL. A man in the garb of a fool,
wandering without aim, burdened with a wallet, full, no
doubt, of his follies and vices ; his disordered clothes dis-
cover his shame ; he is being bitten by a tiger, and does
not know how to escape or defend himself.

n The microcosm, the sum of all in all.

Hieroglyph, Kether, or the kabbalistic crown, between
the four mysterious animals. In the middle of the crown
is Truth holding a rod in each hand.

Such are the twenty-two keys of the Tarot, which
explain all its numbers. Thus, the juggler, or key of the
unities, explains the four aces with their quadruple pro-

2A

370 THE EITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

gressive signification in the three worlds and in the first
principle. So also the ace of deniers or of the circle is the
soul of the world ; the ace of swords is militant intelligence ;
the ace of cups is loving intelligence ; the ace of clubs is
creative intelligence ; they are also the principles of motion,
progress, fecundity, and power. Each number, multiplied
by a key, gives another number, which, explained in turn
by the keys, completes the philosophical and religious revela-
tion contained in each sign. Now, each of the fifty-six
cards can be multiplied in turn by the twenty-two keys ; a
series of combinations thus results, giving all the most
astonishing conclusions of revelation and of light. It is a
truly philosophical machine, which keeps the mind from
going astray while leaving its initiative and liberty ; it is
mathematics applied to the absolute, the alliance of the
positive and the ideal, a lottery of thoughts as exact as
numbers, perhaps the simplest and grandest conception of
human genius.

The mode of reading the hieroglyphs of the Tarot is to
arrange them in a square or triangle, placing equal num-
bers in antagonism, and conciliating them by the unequal.
Four signs invariably express the absolute in a given order,
and are explained by a fifth. Hence the solution of all
magical questions is the pentagram, and all antinomies
are explained by harmonious unity. So arranged, the Tarot
is a veritable oracle, and replies to all possible questions
with more precision and infallibility than the Android of
Albertus Magnus. An imprisoned person with no other
book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a
few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able
to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inex-
haustible eloquence. In fact, this wheel is the true key to
the Oratorical Art and the Grand Art of Kaymund Lully ;
it is the true secret of the transmutation of shadows into
light ; it is the first and most important of all the arcana of
the great work. By means of this universal key of symbol-
ism, all allegories of India, Egypt and Judea are illuminated ;

THE BOOK OF HERMES

371

the Apocalypse of St John is a kabbalistic book the sense of
which is rigorously indicated by the numbers of the Urim,
Thummim, Theraphim, and Ephod, which are all resumed
and completed by the Tarot ; the old sanctuaries have no
longer mysteries, and the significance of the objects of the
Hebrew cultus is for the first time comprehensible. Who
does not perceive in the golden table, crowned and sup-
ported by cherubim, which covered the ark of the covenant,
the same symbols as those of the twenty-first Tarot key ?
The ark was a hieroglyphical synthesis of the whole kabbal-
istic dogma ; it included the jod or blossoming staff of
Aaron, the he, or cup, the gomor containing the manna,
the two tables of the law — an analogous symbol to that of

the sword of justice — and the manna kept in the gomor,
four objects which interpret wonderfully the letters of the
divine tetragram. Gaffarel has learnedly proved that the
cherubim, or cherubs of the ark, were in the likeness of bulls,
but what he did not know was that, instead of two, there
were four — two at each end, as the text expressly says —
though it has been misconstrued for the most part by com-
mentators. The eighteenth and nineteenth verses of the
twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus should read thus : " And
thou shalt make two bulls or sphinxes of beaten gold on
each side of the oracle. And thou shalt make the one
looking this way and the second that way." The cherubs

372 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

or sphinxes were, in fact, coupled by twos on each side of
the ark, and their heads were turned to the four corners
of the mercy-seat, which they covered with their wings
rounded archwise, thus overshadowing the crown of the
golden table, which they sustained upon their shoulders,
facing one another at the openings and looking at the pro-
pitiatory (see the figure on p. 3*71). The ark, moreover,
had three parts or stages, representing Atziluth, Jetzirah,
and Brian — the three worlds of the kabbalah : the base of
the coffer, to which were fitted the four rings of two levers
analogous to the pillars of the temple, JAKIN and BOHAS ;
the body of the coffer, on which the sphinxes appeared in
relief ; and the cover, overshadowed by the wings. The base
represented the kingdom of salt, to use the terminology of
the adepts of Hermes ; the coffer, the realm of mercury or
azoth ; and the cover, the realm of sulphur or of fire. The
other objects of the cultus were not less allegorical, but would
require a special treatise to describe and explain them.

Saint Martin, in his Natural Table of the Correspondences
between God, Man, and the Universe, followed, as we have
said, the division of the Tarot, giving an extended mystical
commentary upon the twenty-two keys, but he carefully re-
frained from stating whence he derived his plan, and from
revealing the hieroglyphics on which he commented. Postel
shewed similar discretion, naming the Tarot only in a
diagram of the key to his arcana, and referring to it in the
rest of his book under the title of the Genesis of Enoch.
The personage of Enoch, author of the primeval sacred
book, is in effect identical with that of Thoth among the
Egyptians, Cadmus among the Pho3nicians, and Palamedes
among the Greeks. We have obtained in an extraordinary
manner a sixteenth century medal, which is a key of the
Tarot. We scarcely know whether to state that this medal,
and the place where it was deposited, were shown us in
dream by the divine Paracelsus ; in any case, the medal is
in our possession. On one side it depicts the juggler in a
German costume, of the sixteenth century, holding his girdle

THE BOOK OF HERMES

373

with one hand, and with the other the pentagram. On a
table in front of him, between an open book and a closed
purse, are ten deniers or talismans, arranged in two lines of
three each and a square of four; the feet of the table form
two n, and those of the juggler two inverted 1. The obverse
side of the medal contains the letters of the alphabet,
arranged on a magical square, as follows : —

It will be observed that this alphabet has only twenty-
two letters, the V and N being duplicated, and that it is
arranged in four quinaries, with a quaternary for base and
key. The four final letters are two combinations of the
duad and the triad, and, read kabbalistically, they form the
word AZOTH, by rendering to the shapes of the letters their
value in primitive Hebrew, taking N for N, Z as it is in
Latin, V for the Hebrew 1 vau, which is pronounced O
between two vowels, or letters having the value of vowels,
and X for the primitive tau, which had precisely the same
figure. The entire Tarot is thus explained in this wonder-
ful medal, which is worthy of Paracelsus, and we hold it at
the disposal of the curious. The letters arranged by four
times five are summed by the word mZ«, analogous to that
of mrp, and of INEI, and containing all the mysteries of the
Kabbalah.

The book of the Tarot, being of such high scientific im-
portance, it is desirable that it should not be further altered.
We have examined the collection of ancient Tarots pre-
served in the Imperial Library, and have thus collected all
the hieroglyphs, of which we have given a description. An
important work still remains to be done — the publication of

374 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

a really complete and well-executed exemplar. We shall,
perhaps, undertake the task.

Vestiges of the Tarot are found among all nations. As
we have said, the Italian is, perhaps, the most faithful and
best preserved, but it may be further perfected by precious
indications derived from the Spanish varieties. The two of
cups, for example, in the Naibi is completely Egyptian,
showing two archaic vases with ibis handles, superposed on
a cow. A unicorn is represented in the middle of the four
of deniers ; the three of cups exhibits the figure of Isis issuing
from a vase, while two ibises issue from two other vases, one
with a crown for the goddess, and one holding a lotus, which
he seems to be offering for her acceptance. The four aces bear
the image of the hieratic and sacred serpent, while in some
specimens the seal of Solomon is placed at the centre of the
four of deniers, instead of the symbolical unicorn. The
German Tarots have suffered great alteration, and scarcely
do more than preserve the number of the keys, which are
crowded with grotesque or pantagruelian figures. We have
a Chinese Tarot before us, and the Imperial Library contains
samples of others that are similar. M. Paul Boiteau, in his
remarkable work on playing-cards, has given some admir-
ably executed specimens. The Chinese Tarot preserves
several primeval emblems ; the deniers and swords are
plainly distinguishable, but it would be less easy to discover
the cups and clubs.

It was at the epoch of the Gnostic and Manichaean heresies
that the Tarot must have been lost to the Church, at which
time also the meaning of the divine Apocalypse perished.
It was understood no longer that the seven seals of this
kabbalistic book are seven pantacles, the representation
of which we give (see p. 376), and that these pantacles
are explained by the analogies of the numbers, characters,
and figures of the Tarot. Thus the universal tradition of the
one religion was a moment broken, darkness or doubt spread
over the whole earth, and it seemed, in the eyes of ignorance,
that true Catholicism, the universal revelation, had briefly

THE BOOK OF HERMES 375

disappeared. The explanation of the book of St John by
the characters of the Kabbalah will be an entirely new
revelation, though foreseen by several distinguished magi, one
among whom, M. Augustin Chaho, thus expresses himself : —
" The poem of the Apocalypse presupposes in the young
evangelist a complete system and traditions individually
developed by himself. It is written in the form of a vision,
and binds in a brilliant framework of poetry the whole
erudition, the whole thought of African civilisation. An
inspired bard, the author touches upon a series of ruling
events ; he draws in bold outlines the history of society from
cataclysm to cataclysm, and even further still. The truths
which he reveals are prophecies brought from far and wide,
of which he is the resounding echo. He is the voice which
cries, the voice which chants the harmonies of the desert,
and prepares the paths for the light. His speech peals
forth with mastery and compels faith, for he carries among
savage nations the oracles of lao, and unveils Him who
is the First-Born of the Sun for the admiration of
civilisations to come. The theory of the four ages is
found in the Apocalypse, as it is found in the
books of Zoroaster and in the Bible. The gradual recon-
struction of primeval federations, and of the reign of God
among peoples emancipated from the yoke of tyrants and
the bonds of error, are clearly foretold for the end of the
fourth age, and the renovation of the cataclysm, exhibited
at first from afar, even unto the consummation of time.
The description of the cataclysm and its duration ; the new
world emerging from the waves, and spreading in all its
beauty under heaven ; the great serpent, bound for a time
by an angel in the depths of the abyss ; finally, the dawn
of that age to come, prophesied by the Word, who appeared
to the apostle at the beginning of his poem : ' His head and
his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his
eyes were as a flame of fire ; and his feet like unto fine
brass, as if they burned in a furnace ; and his voice as the
sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven

APOCALYPTIC KEY.
The Seven Seals of St John.

376

THE BOOK OF HERMES 377

stars : and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword :
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.'
Such is Ormuz, Osiris, Chourien, the Lamb, the Christ, the
Ancient of Days, the man of the time and the river cele-
brated by Daniel. He is the first and the last, who was,
who must be, alpha and omega, beginning and end. He
holds the key of mysteries in his hands ; he opens the great
abyss of the central fire, where death sleeps beneath his
canopy of darkness, where sleeps the great serpent awaiting
the wakening of the ages."

The author connects this sublime allegory of St John
with that of Daniel, wherein the four forms of the sphinx
are applied to the chief periods of history, where the Man-
Sun, the Word-Light, consoles and instructs the seer.

" The prophet Daniel beholds a sea tossed by the four
winds of heaven, and beasts differing one from another
come out of the depths of the ocean. The empire of all
things on earth was given them for a time, two times, and
the dividing of time. They are four who so come forth.
The first beast, symbol of the solar race of seers, comes from
the region of Africa, resembling a lion and having eagle's
wings ; the heart of a man was given it. The second beast,
emblem of the northern conquerors, who reigned by iron
during the second age, was like unto a bear ; it had three
ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it, images of
the three great conquering families, and they said unto it :
Arise, devour much flesh. After the apparition of the fourth
beast, there were thrones raised up, and the Ancient of
Days, the Christ of seers, the Lamb of the first age, was
manifested. His garment was of dazzling whiteness, his
head radiant ; his throne, whence came forth living flames,
was borne upon burning wheels ; a flame of swift fire shone
in his countenance ; legions of angels or stars sparkled round
him. The judgment was set, the allegorical books were
opened. The new Christ came with the clouds of heaven
and came to the Ancient of Days, and there were given him
power, honour, and a kingdom over all peoples, tribes, and

378 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

tongues. Then Daniel came near unto one of them that
stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. And it was
answered him that the four beasts were four powers which
should reign successively over the earth." M. Chaho pro-
ceeds to explain a variety of images, strikingly analogous,
which are found in almost all sacred books. His observa-
tions at this point are worthy of remark.

" In every primitive logos, the parallel between physical
correspondences and moral relations is established on the
same roots. Each word carries its material and sensible
definition, and this living language is as perfect and true as
it is simple and natural in man the creator. Let the seer
express by the same word, slightly modified, the sun, day,
light, truth, and applying the same epithet to a white sun
and to a lamb, let him say, Lamb or Christ, instead of sun,
and sun instead of truth, light, civilisation, and there is no
allegory, but there are true correspondences seized and ex-
pressed by inspiration. But when the children of night say
in their incoherent and barbarous dialect, sun, day, light,
truth, lamb, the wise correspondence so clearly expressed by
the primitive logos becomes effaced and disappears, and, by
simple translation, the lamb and the sun become allegorical
beings, symbols. Remark, in effect, that the word allegory
itself signifies, in Celtic definition, change of discourse, trans-
lation. The observation we have made applies exactly to
all barbarous cosmogonical language. Seers made use of
the same inspired radical to express nourishment and instruc-
tion. Is not the science of truth the nourishment of the
soul ? Thus, the scroll of papyrus, or the book, eaten by
the prophet Ezekiel ; the little volume which the angel
gave as food to the author of the Apocalypse ; the festivities
of the magical palace of Asgard, to which Gangler was
invited by Har the Sublime ; the miraculous multiplication
of seven small loaves narrated by the Evangelists of the
Nazarene ; the living bread which Jesus-Sun gave his
disciples to eat, saying, ' This is my body,' and a host of
similar occurrences, are a repetition of the same allegory :

THE BOOK OF HERMES 379

the life of souls who are nourished by truth — truth, which
multiplies without ever diminishing, but, on the contrary,
increases in the measure that it nourishes.

" Exalted by a noble sentiment of patriotism, dazzled by
the idea of an immense revolution, let a revealer of hidden
things come forward and seek to popularise the discoveries of
science among gross and ignorant men, destitute of the most
simple elementary notions ; let him say, for example, that the
earth revolves, and that it is shaped like an egg ; what resource
has the barbarian who hears him except to believe ? Is it not
plain that every proposition of this nature becomes for him
a dogma from on high, an article of faith ? And is not the
veil of a wise allegory sufficient to make it a mythos ? In
the schools of seers the terrestrial globe was represented by
an egg of pasteboard or painted wood, and when the young
children were asked, ' What is this egg ? ' they answered,
' It is the earth/ Those older children, the barbarians,
hearing this, repeated, after the little children of the seers : —
' The world is an egg.' But they understood thereby the
physical, material world, and the seers the geographical, ideal,
image world, created by mind and the logos. As a fact, the
priests of Egypt represented mind, intelligence, Kneph, with
an egg placed upon his lips, to express clearly that the egg
was here only a comparison, an image, a mode of speech.
Chournountou, the philosopher of the Ezour-Vedam, explains
after the same manner to the fanatic Biache what must be
understood by the golden egg of Brahma."

We must not wholly despair of a period which still con-
cerns itself with these serious and reasonable researches ; we
have cited these pages of M. Chaho with great mental satis-
faction and profound sympathy. Here is no longer the
negative and desolating criticism of Dupuis and Volney,
but tendency towards one faith and one worship connecting
all the future with all the past ; it is the exoneration of all
great men falsely accused of superstition and idolatry ; it is,
finally, the justification of God Himself, that sun of intelli-
gences who is never veiled for just souls and pure hearts.

380 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

" Great and pre-eminent is the seer, the initiate, the elect of
nature and of supreme reason," cries the author once more,
in concluding what we have just cited. " His alone is that
faculty of imitation which is the principle of his perfection,
while its inspirations, swift as a lightning flash, direct
creations and discoveries. His alone is a perfect Word of
conformity, propriety, flexibility, wealth, creating harmony
of thought by physical reaction — of thought, whereof the
perceptions, still independent of language, ever reflect
nature exactly reproduced in his impressions, well judged
and well expressed in its correspondences. His alone is
light, science, truth, because imagination, confined to its
passive secondary part, never governs reason, the natural
logic which results from the comparison of ideas ; which
come into being, extend in the same proportion as his needs,
and because the circle of his knowledge enlarges thus by
degrees without intermixture of false judgments and errors.
His alone is a light infinitely progressive, because the rapid
multiplication of population, after terrestrial renovations,
composes in a few centuries a new society in all the imagin-
able moral and political correspondences of its destiny;
and we might add, his alone is absolute light. The man
of our time is immutable in himself ; he changes no more
than nature, in which he is rooted. The social conditions
which surround him alone determine the degree of his per-
fection, of which the bounds are virtue, holiness of man, and
his happiness in the law."

After such elucidations, will any one ask the utility of
the occult sciences ? Will they treat with the disdain of
mysticism and illuminism these living mathematics, these
proportions of ideas and forms, this revelation permanent
in the universal reason, this emancipation of mind, this im-
mutable basis provided for faith, this omnipotence revealed
to will ? Children in search of illusions, are you dis-
appointed because we offer you marvels ? Once a man
said to us, " Raise up the devil, and I will believe in you."
We answered, " You ask too little ; we will not make the

THE BOOK OF HERMES 381

devil appear bub vanish from the whole world ; we will chase
him from your dreams ! " The devil is ignorance, darkness,
chaotic thought, deformity. Awake, sleeper of the middle
ages ! See you not that it is day ? See you not the light
of God filling all nature ? Where now will the destroyed
prince of perdition dare to shew himself ?

It remains for us to state our conclusions and to define
the end and application of this work in the religious and
philosophical order, and in the order of positive and material
realisations. As regards the religious order, we have demon-
strated that the practices of religious worships cannot be
indifferent, that the magic of religions is in their rites, that
their moral force is in the triadic hierarchy, and that the
base, principle, and synthesis of the hierarchy is unity.
We have demonstrated the universal unity and orthodoxy
of dogma, clothed successively with various allegorical veils,
and we have followed the truth saved by Moses from pro-
fanation in Egypt, preserved in the kabbalah of the
prophets, emancipated by the Christian school from the
slavery of the pharisees, attracting all the poetic and
generous aspirations of Greek and Roman civilisation, pro-
testing against a new pharisaism more corrupt than the
first, with the great saints of the middle ages and the bold
thinkers of the Eenaissance. We have exhibited, I say, that
truth always universal, always living, alone conciliating
reason and faith, science and submission ; the truth of
being demonstrated by being, of harmony demonstrated by
harmony, of reason manifested by reason. By revealing
for the first time to the world the mysteries of magic we
have not sought to revive practices entombed beneath the
ruins of ancient civilisations, but would say to humanity in
our day that it is also called to create itself immortal and
omnipotent by its works. Liberty does not offer itself, it
must be seized, says a modern writer : it is the same with
science, for which reason to divulge absolute truth is never
useful to the vulgar. But at an epoch when the sanctuary

382 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

has been devastated and has fallen into ruins, because its
key has been thrown over the hedges to the profit of no
one, I have deemed it my duty to pick up that key, and I
offer it to him who can take it ; in his turn he will be
•doctor of the nations and liberator of the world. Fables
and leading-strings are needed, and will always be needed
by children, but it is not necessary that those who hold the
leading-strings should also be children, lending a ready ear
to fables. Let the most absolute science, let the highest
reason, become the possession of the chiefs of the people;
let the priestly art and the royal art take up once more the
double sceptre of antique initiations, and the world will re-
issue from chaos. Burn no more holy images, destroy no
more temples ; temples and images are necessary for man ;
but drive out the merchants from the house of prayer;
let the blind no longer be leaders of the blind ; reconstruct
the hierarchy of intelligence and holiness, and recognise
only those who know as the teachers of those who believe.
Our book is catholic, and if the revelations it contains are
likely to alarm the conscience of the simple, we are consoled
by the thought that they will not read them. We write
for unprejudiced men, and have no wish to natter irreligion
any more than fanaticism. If there be anything essentially
free and inviolable in the world, it is belief. By science
and persuasion we must endeavour to lead bewrayed
imaginations from the absurd, but it would be investing
their errors with all the dignity and truth of the martyr to
either threaten or constrain them.

Faith is nothing but superstition and folly if it have not
reason for its basis, and we cannot suppose that which we
do not know except by analogy with what we know. To
define what we are unacquainted with is presumptuous
ignorance ; to affirm positively what one does not know is
to lie. So is faith an aspiration and a desire. So be it ; I
desire it to be so ; such is the last word of all professions of
faith. Faith, hope, and charity are three such inseparable
sisters that they can be taken one for another. Thus, in

THE BOOK OF HERMES 383

religion, universal and hierarchic orthodoxy, restoration of
temples in all their spendour, re-establishment of all cere-
monies in their primitive pomp, hierarchic instruction of
symbols, mysteries, miracles, legends for children, light for
grown men who will beware of scandalising little ones in
the symplicity of their faith ; this in religion is our whole
utopia, and it is also the desire and need of humanity.

Coming now to philosophy, our own is that of realism
and positivism. Being is by reason of the being of which
no one doubts. All exists for us by science. To know is
to be. Science and its object become identified in the
intellectual life of him who knows. To doubt is to be
ignorant. Now, a thing of which we are ignorant does not
as yet exist for us. To live intellectually is to learn.
Being developes and amplifies by science. The first con-
quest of science, and the first result of the exact sciences,
is the sentiment of reason. The laws of nature are algebraic.
Thus, the sole reasonable faith is the adhesion of the
student to theorems, the entire essential justice of which is
outside his knowledge, though its applications and results
are sufficiently demonstrated to his mind. Thus, the true
philosopher believes in what is, and does not admit & poster-
iori that all is reasonable. But no more charlatanism in
philosophy, no more empiricism, no more system ! The study
of being and its compared realities ! A metaphysic of nature!
Then away with mysticism! No more dreams in philo-
sophy ; philosophy is not a poesy, but the pure mathematics
of realities, physical and moral. Leave unto religion the
freedom of its infinite aspirations, and let it leave in turn
to science the exact conclusions of absolute experimentalism.

Man is the son of his works ; he is what he wills to be ;
he is the image of the God he makes ; he is the realisation
of his ideal. Should his ideal want basis, the whole edifice of
his immortality collapses. Philosophy is not the ideal, but
it serves as a foundation for the ideal. The known is for us
the measure of the unknown ; by the visible we appreciate
the invisible ; sensations are to thoughts even as thoughts

384 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

to aspirations. Science is a celestial trigonometry : one of
the sides of the absolute triangle is the nature which is
submitted to our investigations; the second is our soul,
which embraces and reflects nature ; the third is the absolute,
in which our soul enlarges. No more atheism possible
henceforward, for we no longer pretend to define God.
God is for us the most perfect and best of intelligent beings,
and the ascending hierarchy of beings sufficiently demon-
strates his existence. Do not let us ask for more, but, to-
be ever understanding him better, let us grow perfect by
ascending towards him. No more ideology ; being is being,
and cannot perfectionise save according to the real laws of
being. Observe, and do not prejudge ; exercise our
faculties, do not falsify them ; enlarge the domain of life in
life ; behold truth in truth ! Everything is possible to him
who wills only what is true ! Rest in nature, study, know,
then dare ; dare to will, dare to act, and be silent ! No
more hatred of anyone. Everyone reaps what he sows.
The consequence of works is fatal, and to judge and chastise
the wicked is for the supreme reason. He who enters into-
a blind alley must retrace his steps or be broken. Warn
him gently, if he can still hear you, but human liberty must
take its course. We are not the judges of one another.
Life is a battle-field. Do not pause in the fighting on
account of those who fall, but avoid trampling them. Then
conies the victory, and the wounded on both sides, become
brothers by suffering and before humanity, will meet in the
ambulances of the conquerors.

Such are the consequences of the philosophical dogma of
Hermes ; such has been from all time the ethic of true
adepts ; such is the philosophy of the Rosicrucian inheritors
of all the ancient wisdoms ; such is the secret doctrine of
those associations that are treated as subversive of the
public order, and have ever been accused of conspiring
against thrones and altars. The true adept, far from dis-
turbing the public order, is its firmest supporter. He has
too great a respect for liberty to desire anarchy ; child of

THE BOOK OF HERMES 385

the light, he loves harmony, and knows that darkness begets
confusion. He accepts everything that is, and denies only
what is not. He wills true religion, practical, universal,
full of faith, palpable, realised in all life ; he wills it to
have a wise and powerful priesthood, surrounded by all the
virtues and all the prestige of faith. He wills the universal
orthodoxy, the absolute, hierarchic, apostolic, sacramental,
incontestable, and uncontested catholicity. He wills an
experimental philosophy, real, mathematical, modest in its
conclusions, untiring in its researches, scientific in its pro-
gress. Who, therefore, can be against us if God and reason
are with us ? Does it matter if man prejudge and slander
us ? Our entire justification is in our thoughts and our
works. We come not, like (Edipus, to destroy the sphinx of
symbolism ; we seek, on the contrary, to resuscitate it. The
sphinx devours only blind interpreters ; and he who slays
it has not known how to divine it properly ; it must be
subdued, enchained, and compelled to follow us. The
sphinx is the living palladium of humanity, it is the con-
quest of the King of Thebes ; it would have been the
salvation of (Edipus, had (Edipus completely divined its
enigma !

In the positive and material order, what must be con-
cluded from this work ? Is magic a force which science
may abandon to the boldest and wickedest ? Is it a cheat
and falsehood of those who are skilled in fascinating the
ignorant and feeble ? Is the philosophical mercury the
exploitation of credulity by address ? Those who have
understood us know already how to answer these questions.
In these days, magic can be no longer the art of fascina-
tions and illusions ; those only who wish to be deceived can
be deceived now. But the narrow and rash incredulity of
the last century is denied in totality by nature herself. We
are environed with prophecies and miracles ; doubt once
unwisely denied them ; now, science explains them. No,
Monsieur le Comte de Mirville, a destroyed spirit is not
allowed to disturb the empire of God ! No, things unknown

2B

386 THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

cannot be explained by things impossible ! No, invisible
beings are not permitted to deceive, torment, seduce, and
even kill the living creatures of God, men, already so
ignorant, and scarce able to combat their own delusions !
Those who told you all this in your childhood, Monsieur le
Comte, have deceived you, and if you were child enough
once to listen to them, be man enough now to disbelieve
them. Man is himself the creator of his heaven and hell,
and there are no demons except our own follies. Minds
chastised by truth are corrected by the chastisement, and
dream no more of disturbing the world. If Satan exist, he
can be only the most unfortunate, most ignorant, most
humiliated, and most impotent of beings. The existence of
a universal agent of life, of a living fire, of an astral light,
is demonstrated by facts. Magnetism enables us to under-
stand to-day the miracles of old magic ; the facts of second
sight, aspirations, sudden cures, thought-reading, are now
admitted and familiar things, even among our children.
But the tradition of the ancients has been lost, discoveries
have been regarded as new, the last word is sought about
observed phenomena, minds grow excited over meaningless
manifestations, fascinations are experienced without being
understood. We say, therefore, to table- turners : These
prodigies are not novel; you can perform even greater
wonders if you study the laws of nature. And what will
follow a new acquaintance with these powers ? A new
career opened to the activity and intelligence of man, the
battle of life reorganised with arms more perfect, and the
possibility restored to the flower of intelligence of once
more becoming the masters of all destinies, by providing
true priests and great kings for the world to come !

HERE ENDS THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC.

SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL

THE NTJCTEMERON OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA

The Greek text was first published after an ancient manuscript, by
Gilbert Gautrinus, in De Vita et Morte Moysis, Lib. III., p. 206 ; and
subsequently reproduced by Laurent Moshemius in his Sacred and
Historico-Oitical Observations. Amsterdam, 1721. Translated and
interpreted for the first time by £liphas Le"vi.

NUCTEMERON signifies the day of the night or the night
illumined by day. It is analogous to the " Light Issuing
from Darkness," which is the title of a well-known Hermetic
work. It may also be translated THE LIGHT OF OCCULTISM.
This monument of transcendent Assyrian magic is suffi-
ciently curious to make it superfluous to enlarge on its
importance. We have not merely evoked Apollonius, we
have possibly resuscitated him.

THE NUCTEMERON

The First Hour.

In unity, the demons chant the praises of God ; they lose their malice
and fury.

The Second Hour.

By the duad, the Zodiacal fish chant the praises of God ; the fiery
serpents interlace about the caduceus, and the lightning becomes
liarmon, ous.

The Third Hour.

The serpents of the Hermetic caduceus entwine three times ; Cerberus
opens his triple jaw, and fire chants the praises of God with the three
tongues of the lightning.

387

388 SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

The Fourth Hour.

At the fourth hour the soul revisits the tombs ; the magical lamps
are lighted at the four corners of the circle ; it is the time of en-
chantments and illusions.

The Fifth Hour.
The voice of the great waters celebrates the God of the heavenly

The Sixth Hour.

The spirit believes itself immovable ; it beholds the infernal monsters
swarm down upon it, and does not fear.

The Seventh Hour.

A fire, which imparts life to all animated beings, is directed by the
will of pure men. The initiate stretches forth his hand, and pains are
assuaged.

The Eighth Hour.

The stars utter speech to one another ; the soul of the suns corre-
sponds with the exhalation of the flowers ; chains of harmony create
correspondence between all natural things.

The Ninth Hour.
The number which must not be divulged.

The Tenth Hour.

The key of the astronomical cycle and of the circular movement of
human life.

The Eleventh Hour.

The wings of the genii move with a mysterious and deep murmur ;
they fly from sphere to sphere, and bear the messages of God from
world to world.

The Twelfth Hour.

The works of the light eternal are fulfilled by fire.

EXPLANATION

THESE twelve symbolical hours, analogous to the signs of
the magical Zodiac and to the allegorical labours of
Hercules, represent the schedule of the works of initiation.
It is necessary therefore (1) To overcome evil passions, and,
according to the expression of the wise Hierophant, compel

THE NUCTEMERON 389

the demons themselves to praise God. (2) To study the
balanced forces of nature, and know how harmony results
from the analogy of contraries ; to know also the great
magical agent and the twofold polarisation of the universal
light. (3) To gain initiation into the triadic principle of all
theogonies and all religious symbols. (4) To know how to
overcome all phantoms of imagination, and triumph over all
illusions. (5) To understand after what manner universal
harmony is produced in the centre of the four elementary
forces. (6) To become inaccessible to fear. (7) To practise
the direction of the magnetic light. (8) To learn prevision
of effects by the calculus of the balance of causes. (9) To
understand the hierarchy of instruction, to respect the
mysteries of dogma, and to keep silence in presence of the
profane. (10) To study astronomy exhaustively. (11) To
become initiated by analogy into the laws of universal life
and intelligence. (12) To fulfil the great works of nature
by direction of the light.

Here follow the names and attributions of the genii who
preside over the twelve hours of the ISTuctemeron. By these
genii the ancient hierophants understood neither angels nor
demons, but moral forces or personified virtues.

Genii of the First Hour.

PAPUS, physician. SINBUCK, judge. KASPHUIA, necro-
mancer. ZAHUN, genius of scandal. HEIGLOT, genius of
snowstorms. MIZKUN, genius of amulets. HAVEN, genius
of dignity.

Explanation.

Wj must become the physician and judge of ourselves in
order to vanquish the witchcrafts of the necromancer, conjure
and contemn the genius of scandal, triumph over the opinion
which freezes all enthusiasms, and confounds everything in
the same cold pallor, like the genius of the snowstorms;
know, finally, the virtue of signs so as to enchain the

390 SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

genius of amulets that we may reach the dignity of the
magus.

Genii of the Second Hour.

SISERA, genius of desire. TORVATUS, genius of discord.
NITIBUS, genius of the stars. HIZARBIN, genius of the seas.
SACHLUPH, genius of plants. BAGLIS, genius of measure and
balance. LABEZERIN, genius of success.

Explanation.

We must learn how to will and thus transform the genius
of desire into power ; the hindrance to will is the genius of
discord, who is bound by the science of harmony. Harmony
is the genius of the stars and of the seas ; we must study the
virtue of plants, and understand the laws of the balance of
measure in order to attain success.

Genii of the Third Hour.

HAHABI, genius of fear. PHLOGABITUS, genius of adorn-
ments. EIRNEUS, destroying genius of idols. MASCARUN,
genius of death. ZAROBI, genius of precipices. BUTATAR,
genius of calculations. CAHOR, genius of deception.

Explanation.

When you have conquered the genius of fear by the
growing force of your will, you will know that dogmas are
the sacred adornments of truth unknown to the vulgar ;
but you will cast down all idols in your intelligence ; you will
bind the genius of death ; you will fathom all precipices and
subject the infinite itself to the ratio of your calculations ;
and thus you will ever escape the ambushes of the genius
of deception.

Genii of the Fourth Hour.

PHALGUS, genius of judgment. THAGRINUS, genius of
confusion. EISTIBUS, genius of divination. PHARZUPH,

THE NUCTEMERON 391

genius of fornication. SISLAU, genius of poisons.
SCHIEKRON, genius of bestial love. ACLAHAYR, genius of
sport.

Explanation.

The power of the magus is in his judgment, which enables
him to avoid the confusion consequent on antinomy and the
antagonism of principles ; he practises the divination of the
sages, but he despises the illusions of enchanters who are
the slaves of fornication, artists in poisons, ministers of
'bestial love ; in this way he is victorious over fatality, which
is the genius of sport.

Genii of the Fifth Hour.

ZEIRNA, genius of infirmities. TABLIBIK, genius of fascination.
TACRITAU, genius of goetic magic. SUPHLATUS, genius of
the dust. SAIR, genius of the stibium of the sages.
BARCUS, genius of the quintessence. CAMAYSAR, genius of
the marriage of contraries.

Explanation.

Triumphing over human infirmities, the magus is no
longer the sport of fascination ; he tramples on the vain
and dangerous practices of goetic magic, the whole power of
which is but dust driven before the wind ; but he possesses
the stibium of the sages ; he is armed with all the creative
powers of the quintessence; and he produces at will the
harmo' .y which results from the analogy and the marriage
of contraries.

Genii of the Sixth Hour.

TABRIS, genius of free will. SUSABO, genius of voyages.
EIRNILUS, genius of fruits. NITIKA, genius of precious
stones. HAATAN, genius who conceals treasures. HATIPHAS,
genius of attire. ZAREN, avenging genius.

392 SUPPLEMENT TO THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC

Explanation.

The magus is free ; he is the occult king of the earth,
and he traverses it as one passing through his own domain.
In his voyages he becomes acquainted with the juices of
plants and fruits, and with the virtues of precious stones ;
he compels the genius who conceals the treasures of nature to
deliver him all his secrets ; he thus penetrates the mysteries
of form ; understands the vestures of earth and speech ; and
if he be misconstrued, if the nations are inhospitable towards
him, if he pass doing good but receiving outrages, then is
he ever followed by the avenging genius.

Genii of the Seventh Hour.

SIALUL, genius of prosperity. SABRUS, sustaining genius.
LIBRABIS, genius of hidden gold. MIZGITARI, genius of
eagles. CAUSUB, serpent-charming genius. SALILUS, genius
who sets doors open. JAZER, genius who compels love.

Explanation.

The septenary expresses the victory of the magus ; who
gives prosperity to men and nations ; who sustains them by
his subli